


even winter must surrender spring

by eena



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Jon Snow’s Pretty Hair, M/M, Multi, Ned Stark’s Honour, The King in The North, The King of the Mountain, The King of the Rivers, The King of the Rock, The Queen in The North, Tywin Lannister's A+ Parenting, and dragons, even more shenanigans that I can’t tack a house to because SUSPENSE, eventual targaryen shenanigans, martell shenanigans, the storm king - Freeform, tyrell shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-09-01 13:34:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16766161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eena/pseuds/eena
Summary: AU:  She used to tell Jaime that no one else in the world mattered, except for the two of them.  And the fool had gone off and died, leaving her here by herself.





	1. be at peace

Title: even winter must surrender spring  
Author: eena  
Rating: Mature  
Category: Ned Stark/Cersei Lannister  
Summary: She used to tell Jaime that no one else in the world mattered, except for the two of them. And the fool had gone off and died, leaving her here by herself.

~*~

For three hundred years the Targaryens ruled Westeros.

They came astride dragons and burned down all that lay in their path. The dragon kings and queens ruled from their Iron Throne, from generation to generation. Some were gallant, some noble; others strong, just, and fair. Some were also dull, sadistic, incompetent, or mad. They were absolute-a dynasty whose power and influence seemed would go on forever.

The Targaryens ruled the seven kingdoms for three hundred years-until they didn’t.

~*~

Cersei Lannister always knew she was destined to be queen of the seven kingdoms. Her father had told her so, and who was there in the world with a will strong enough to defy Tywin Lannister? Father said she would be queen of the seven kingdoms and married to the dragon prince Rhaegar himself, and she believed it to be true.

Until it was not.

Until there was a mad king.

And then Elia of Dorne.

And then finally, and possibly the worst insult of all, Lyanna Stark. 

Cersei was hidden away at Casterly Rock while the world fell to pieces-daughters carried off in the dead of the night, lords melted in their armour, and banners raised all over the seven kingdoms in the name of rebellion and loyalty both. She attended her lessons and worked at her stitches while her father and uncles shut themselves away in her father’s solar and talked of many things that they would not share with her. Cersei swept through the halls of the Rock, terrorizing the household staff while Tywin Lannister called his banners, herded them all onto the grounds of Casterly Rock, and kept them there. She could hear them at their training, almost at all hours of the day-war games to keep them occupied while her father plotted. She could see them from any which window she looked through, so vast and spread about they were. 

She would watch them swing swords, smash shields, let loose arrows, and cursed her bad luck in being born a girl yet again. Playing at war would be better use of her time than these damned stitches or her septa’s mindless lessons on the need for humility and obedience in proper young maids. She thought of Jaime often, and cursed him too for being so far from home and leaving her at the Rock to be ignored by their father and annoyed by the fool women Tywin demanded she surround herself with.

They heard bits of news, here and there. Her father certainly heard more than her, but enough filtered through the servants and the soldiers to find its way to her. Jeyne Farman was still mostly useless, but had overcome her nasty habit of running away from what Cersei wanted of her. She could be trusted to wander down to her father’s tents and needle her brother into giving her gossip. It was Jeyne who whispered to her about how the fighting started in the Vale, and how some of Lord Arryn’s own banners turned against him and tried to deny him Gulltown. And how the Storm Lord smashed his way through them with his warhammer while the newly made Lord Stark used his dark northern magic to turn into shadows and slip away to Winterfell. 

“What horseshit,” Cersei huffed and Jeyne shrugged and proceeded to tell her even stupider things. Like how the Baratheon banners split the same way and Robert slaughtered the lot and dragged their corpses to Summerhall, where he cut up the bodies and scattered the grisly remains all over the ruins.

“The dragons will wish they had died here before I finished!” had been his words, or so the rumours went. It seemed a bit too dramatic to be real. Cersei pinched Jeyne then, for wasting her time, and since then the girl would squeak her reports with far less embellishment. The last bit of news received had to do with Ashford, and while no definitive news of a victory had come, all confirmed that now the Tyrells had entered the fray on the side of the dragons.

“But what of Rhaegar?” she would demand each time Jeyne returned to her side. “Where is the prince?”

Jeyne kept silent and shrugged, no doubt wary of further abuse. It took a few promises and an insincere apology before the stupid girl would summon the courage to tell her of what the men said.

“No one has seen the prince, not since Harrenhal,” Jeyne twisted her hands and scooted as far from Cersei as her chair in the sewing room would allow. “They say he too busy taking his pleasure in raping the northern girl to care about the war.”

She felt her temper rise, flames licking at the back of her throat. “Rhaegar is not a rapist,” she managed to say without giving in to her desire to prick Jeyne with the needles in her hands.

The girl proved herself stupider still by giving Cersei a pitying look. “I do not imagine that many men kidnap young girls to preserve their virtue.”

It might have been the smartest thing Jeyne had ever managed to say. Cersei did not think kindly of her for it.

~*~

A raven arrived, late in the afternoon, after the banners had idled at the Rock for two long months. Father once again locked himself in his solar with her uncles and his sworn lords. They do not emerge for dinner so she sent two servants with food and drink before retiring to her rooms. She did not sleep, nor did she ready herself for sleep. She sat on her bed, hands clutching at her sheets and teeth worrying her bottom lip as she pondered and despaired over every possible bit of news that raven may have carried to her father.

Long into the night, when the hour of the owl gave way to the hour of the wolf, her father appeared at her door. He knocked once and entered, expecting her to be awake. She stood as he crossed the floor, dipping in a short curtsey as she murmured a greeting. His green eyes, so like her own, were for once shining with something akin to satisfaction. She had no real experience to say this with any clear certainty, but it seemed to her that her father, cold Tywin Lannister, seemed pleased.

Cersei wondered, briefly, if she was to be Rhaegar’s queen after all.

“We march tomorrow to join the fray,” her father said in his usual curt manner. “I do not expect it to take too much time.”

“Do we fight for king and country, father? Or, are we rebels after all?” Her voice was leveled, but her mind raced with worries for her brother. Jaime, her golden twin, seemed trapped and in peril either which way.

Her father did not seem to share her concern, or if he did, he hid it well enough. “The time of the dragons is over. A new world awaits at the end of this trouble. And with it, a crown for you, my daughter. The time has come, Cersei, to pay our debts.”

The rush of anticipation that used to accompany her father’s promises failed to appear. She managed to smile around the knot of dread in her throat and bid her father good night. She still did not sleep, rather watched the sun rise through her window whilst her thoughts strayed constantly to her brother.

What would become Jaime, if the dragons heard the lions’ approach?

~*~

They move out suddenly, mid-morning on a day that was undeniably spring. She stood in the courtyard, between her Aunt Genna and Tyrion, bidding farewell to the men as they marched towards the Crownlands. Her father was seated atop his warhorse, not wearing the golden armour he was so famous for. Despite the plain armour in its place, Lord Lannister looked like a king or looked everything that a king should be. She remembered Aerys from the Harrenhal tourney-unkempt, dirty hair, and beady little eyes alight with fiery madness. A pitiful creature, not a true dragon, her father would sneer. The high lords had tolerated Aerys and his madness, because they waited for the spring of Rhaegar’s rule.

And then Rhaegar, no doubt in a fit of his own madness, tore the realm to shreds. The high lords would tolerate Targaryen madness no more.

“They’re not flying the banners,” the dwarf frowned as he looked at the leaving men. Her aunt’s hand on her arms was the only thing keeping Cersei from snapping at the little imp. Genna had a smile on her face, looking past Cersei to Tyrion in badly disguised pride. Cersei said nothing, but pulled her arm from her aunt’s reach. “And the colours are all wrong . . .”

Cersei loathed her little brother, but she knew him to be smart-or perhaps clever would be a better word. She looked over the men marching away from the Rock, at her father in his plain armour and the foreign helm in his hands. Nothing was right about this picture-these men did not look like her father’s men.

“For Jaime! The king cannot punish our brother if he does not see Lannister forces with the rebels!” he looked uglier when he smiled, though she deigned not to say it just now. For the first time, Tyrion’s words were welcome.

“Very good, Tyrion,” Genna spoke when it is apparent that Cersei will say nothing. “You have your father’s shrewd eyes.”

Tywin was not there to scowl at the comparison, so Cersei did it for him, retreating into the Rock in an agitated swirl of skirts.

~*~

Now, they truly lived in the dark. No ravens flew, no messengers came-it seemed as though they lived in two different lands. The Westerlands remained untouched by the war, no peasants seeking shelter, no fires burning in the distance. Cersei knew the war raged on, but could not put her mind to imagining it-the fight was too far away to seem real. The world of Casterly Rock carried on as ever before, the very definition of normalcy.

Until it was not.

The banners had marched out some three moons past. Spring had firmly taken hold of the land, the days growing warmer and longer as time passed. It had been an ordinary day, one amongst a nauseating collection of ordinary days, and everything seemed to be as it should be. Despite what people would later say, there was no low rumble that passed through under the surface of the earth. There were no far-off sounds, no dull echo of sound nor flash of light that drew the smallfolk’s attention from their work. No matter how poetic people wanted to be, the truth was that no such signs made themselves known that day.

No signs, save one that only a handful of people witnessed.

The women had been headed to their sewing, Cersei a half step ahead of her septa and her ladies. She had walked at the head of the swarm of ladies, bored and eyes flickering with barely contained annoyance as she listened to the snippets of conversation behind her. She walked assuredly, head high with her hands clasped together, resting against her stomach, when suddenly her foot failed to find purchase on the ground and the world blurred in front of her eyes as she fell rather forcefully to the floor.

Her head swam with confusion, as if for a few moments Cersei was deaf, blind, and mute and could sense nothing around her. It seemed that the whole world had faded away to a sinister, blinding whiteness that filled her ears with a deafening roar that threatened to split her head in two with its ferocity. She screamed, she remembered screaming, but could not hear her own cries. She thought, for a second, that she had died.

Cersei regained her senses not long after, maybe half an hour later she was told. Someone had gathered her up and ran her to the maester in that much time. She was laid out on the uncomfortable cot in the room designated for the sick, blinking as her sight focused and her eyes could behold those things around her once more. The maester bobbed in and out of her line of vision and she could feel his fingers pressing against her pulse point or pushing against her limbs. She knew the man spoke, but the words were faint and not able to reach her just yet. Aunt Genna appeared next, her face stricken with panic. Her hearing returned quicker now and she heard her aunt beg her to respond, to say something.

“I feel . . .” it took considerable more effort than it should for her mouth to start forming words. “I fuh-fee . . . feel fine.”

She slurred the last word, causing her aunt to raise a speculative eyebrow. But it was the truth, no matter how strange it seemed. As quickly as the fit had come over her, it seemed to be disappearing with the same speed. She pushed herself to a sitting position, glowering wordlessly at the maester when he sought to push her back to the bed. It took mere seconds of sitting for her head to clear and her senses to return in full.

“What happened?” she demanded as soon as she was able. The maester and Aunt Genna start talking at once, over one another, and Cersei rolled her eyes before spying the audience that twitched nervously just beyond the door-her ladies and a half-hidden Tyrion, all looking at her with some alarm. She growled at the concern, demanding they disperse immediately. And her ladies take flight in a second, though Tyrion lingered a full minute longer, daring to poke his whole head into the room and hold her gaze with his own ugly, mismatched one. 

Genna shooed him away before Cersei could snap at him further. The maester was also pushed out the door in mere seconds, Genna telling him to go consult books from his rooms in an obvious dismissal. Once they were alone, her aunt turned to face her with an expression that was grim and dire as Tywin Lannister’s could be.

“Have you need for Moon’s Tea?”

The question surprised her, especially delivered in the impatient and clipped tone that it was. Cersei laughed, squashing the sound as Genna stepped closer and repeated her question with some venom to it this time.

“No!” Cersei recovered and quickly her temper began to flare. “How dare you-I am a maid, dear aunt!“

That was a lie, not that Genna needed to know that. And besides the point-Jaime had been gone too long for this to be a mother’s sickness. 

Genna relented, though her previous worry returned. The maester was welcomed back by a much more hospitable Lady Frey and Lady Lannister. The old man poked and prodded for ten minutes more but found no obvious cause for her fit. He advised a day of rest, for her meals to be brought to her for the rest of the day, and they would convene again on the morrow. A handmaiden must attend her at all times, he also warned, lest she have another fit.

The day passed without further incident. Then two days, and then three, and the maester seemed content to leave her be. Life at Casterly Rock resumed its usual dull pace, until a week had passed since Cersei’s fainting spell.

On the eighth day, a raven arrived.

And then her whole world fell apart.

~*~

It took two weeks for the smoke to reach them in Casterly Rock, rolling across the sky and painting the world a horrible white-grey mess. The smell of smoke and ash was everywhere; she could not escape it no matter where she hid in the castle. The maester wanted her to remain inside, lest the smoke lead to a coughing sickness of its own.

She didn’t listen to him; she was not of a mind to listen to anyone. Aunt Genna’s attempts at comfort only make things worse, driving her between a maddening fury or a drowning despair. She had fled to his old room not long after the news, desperate to find some sense of him that would prove Father’s words wrong. And as she looked and searched, she knew the truth. Perhaps she had known it since she first fell and could find no ailment at cause-only a lingering sense of dread that eventually came to fruition. Cersei’s desperation turned quickly to rage and she had torn the room to shreds as she screamed for her twin to come home. It took three guards to pull her from the room, many more maidens to hold her hands and prevent her from doing further harm to herself or her surroundings. She cursed them loudly for it at the time and felt no more kindness days later.

She used to tell Jaime that no one else in the world mattered, except for the two of them. And the fool had gone off and died, leaving her here by herself.

She stood out on the easterly ramparts of Casterly Rock, late into the night. The guards Genna had ordered to dog her every step were not far behind. She turned her face up to the smoke-filled night sky, could see neither the stars nor the moon. The smoke had swallowed everything up-much like the wildfire had done to King’s Landing.

Tyrion joined her some time later, face turned up the night sky just like hers. It was not a smart idea-her rage boiled just under the surface and she had little love of the imp to start with. Cersei turned on him with violence in her mind’s eye.

“I am not here for you,” he said before she had settled on a threat frightening enough. “I’m here for Jaime,” he gestured up to the smoky sky, “the winds have carried him home.”

She slapped him for this poetry, hard enough to knock him to the ground. He gasped and there were tears shining in his ugly little eyes when he stood again, but he said not a word more. He simply stood and looked back up to the night sky-to the imagined ashes of his brother come home. She wanted to strike him again and moved towards him with fury in her eyes.

He did not flinch when her hand went up, nor did he react when that same hand fell harmlessly to his shoulder. Cersei’s legs finally gave up on her, folding quickly to drop her ungracefully to the floor. A strangled sob slipped out of her mouth, instead of the insults she wanted to hurl at her little brother. Her fingers flexed against his shoulder, clutching a fistful of his shirt to yank him towards her. 

And she cried on his shoulder, a final act of desperation, for the gods in their infinite cruelty had left her with no other brother than him.

~*~

The summons arrived long after the smoke dissipated. Three months after Tywin sent word of his elder son’s death to Casterly Rock, he now sent commands for Cersei, Genna, and a good deal of their household journey to Harrenhal to attend him further. It was brief, straightforward, and an utter lie.

“Not a lie, child,” Genna stood near Cersei, one eye on her despairing niece and one on the maids rushing to pack the trunks of anything and everything they imagined Cersei would need. Since the night on the ramparts with Tyrion, most of Cersei’s anger towards her little brother had fled her, but the other members of the household were not so lucky. Had her mind not been occupied with greater concerns, Cersei would have overseen the entire process with a firm hand and sharp tongue.

“It is more of an omission than a lie,” Genna continued to murmur as she threaded her fingers through Cersei’s golden hair. Cersei was ten and seven, no longer a child to be petted and soothed so, but Genna was as near a mother as she would ever have-and this was a time all maidens wanted their mother near.

“Rhaegar is dead,” Cersei muttered despondently, “and Robert Baratheon with him. King’s Landing is gone, my brother with it. There is no mention of a new king so there is no marriage to be made that will make me queen. Father has sacrificed my twin to buy me the ladyship of some lord’s keep, I know it. A pitiful bargain, not worth the price paid for it.”

Tears still come easily, and they started to once again streak down her face and turn her skin an unsightly, blotchy mess. Genna pulled her into an embrace, her chin resting atop Cersei’s head, her voice also holding the threat of tears. “It will not be so, my child. The gods are not so cruel-and your father not so easily defeated. A king will be named, and you shall be his queen-not even Aerys will take that from you.”

But there laid no easy path to the crown. Rhaegar died upon the Trident, his chest caved in by Robert’s massive Warhammer-an empty victory as the Storm Lord immediately took a sword to the belly as the dragon prince’s dying act and bled out not more than an hour later upon the riverbank. Father had been succinct with his stories of the final battle of the rebellion, and mum on what came after-save for the fate of King’s Landing. 

But rumours had started to return to the Rock, and they spoke mainly of how both returning armies struggled to contain the green blaze that swallowed the capital. No rebels or loyalists in those frantic weeks after the explosion, just men who worked feverishly to contain a fire that could have swallowed half the land if left unattended. The armies frantically felled trees in the bordering Kingswood lest the fire make its way to fresh fuel. And the commanders on both sides sent their men to digging a deep and wide trench around the former capital to contain the hungry flames. They had done well, by all accounts, as the fire did not make it to the Kingswood and took no more land or victims. It had stopped burning, the green flames had died out finally, though they had not heard more than that.

They could crown a new king, but where would they install him? The war for Lyanna Stark had claimed the Iron Throne itself-and she knew there would be more war before a king would rise. Cersei was almost past a marriageable age as it was, her father would wait no longer to wed her and continue the Lannister line. Perhaps Twyin fought for a queen’s crown for any daughter Cersei might produce, a grandchild on the throne might appease the Lion of the Rock.

It would not appease her, but Cersei doubted her father would care. If he had cared for his children more than his name and legacy, Jaime might still be alive. 

Cersei would not be queen, and she would never see her golden brother again.

~*~

Cersei was wrong.

~*~

(Tywin had wept for his son, away from the eyes of the other rebel lords. In a way none of his children would ever believe, Tywin Lannister had sat in the dark of his tent and grieved for his son. But not in a manner of despair, for that was not his way. Tywin mourned furiously, with a strangling sort of rage that robbed of his senses. No one witnessed this mourning, none knew of this episode of grief-stricken madness in the dark hours of the night when Tywin beat his hands bloody against the hard earth-no one, save his brother Kevan. It was Kevan who wiped away the blood and wrapped the wounds in clean dressings. Kevan who assisted him in the morning and helped cover the evidence with leather gloves. Kevan, who saw all and would never tell another soul.

Tywin’s mourning would do him no good in the morning, when the future of the realm would be discussed and decided. Despite Robert’s fall at the Trident, the loyalists were nothing compared to the combined forces of the Stormlands, the Vale, the Westerlands, the Riverlands, and the North. And it would be Baratheon, Arryn, Tully, Stark, and Lannister who decided what to do with the empty throne of Westeros. He thought, perhaps, the Vale and the North would support the new Lord of the Stormlands for the crown-but neither Jon Arryn or Eddard Stark raised the issue. Even the lord in question, Stannis Baratheon, failed to raise the argument.

“Half the realm did not fight for me,” was all the man had to say on the matter. But they had fought for his brother, and as Robert’s heir, there was good argument for it. However, the boy was young and weakened by the siege of Storm’s End that had only been recently lifted. The Tyrell forces who had besieged the castle had abandoned the attack when the truth of the green flames and black smoke came out. 

For the loyalists, there was still Viserys Targaryen to perhaps rally behind. But the bulk of the loyalist forces had surrendered on the shores of the Trident, and the Dornish contingent, what was left of it, lost any and all loyalist fervour when the fate of their princess and her children reached their ears. Dornish forces abandoned the cause and the Tyrells were left to shoulder the majority of the war effort. The Lords of the Reach had no stomach for such a task and stepped back of their own accord, waiting to see what would happen next.

Harrenhal was given over to the rebel lords to house their armies and their prisoners. It was the only keep large enough to accommodate such a host, and the surrounding areas not badly touched by the Rebellion itself. It would suffice for the talks that Tywin hoped would eventually lead to a crown for Stannis Baratheon and his daughter, as his bride. And while the Southron lords might have been swayed by his words, Eddard Stark would not.

The Northern lords had come south at his insistence, to retrieve Lyanna Stark and possibly gift her a crown alongside Robert Baratheon. But Robert was now gone, and Lyanna was nowhere to be found. The rumblings amongst the Northern tents were decidedly against crowning Robert’s little brother-or any other possible legitimate heir. 

“We are not barbaric dolts,” Eddard stated one night not too long after their settling at Harrenhal. “And neither are you, my lords. With Robert, we might have had peace after; or, had Rhaegar survived, we might have had to stomach a defeat, but either way, we would have had a king that the Seven Kingdoms would all have to accept. But we are robbed of them both. We have Stannis, who they will say was just a boy unable to break the siege of his own keep. Or we have Viserys, and I have not marched my men so far south to crown another Targaryen madman as our king. Both choices will lead us to war once more, in a short amount of time, and the Northern armies will march south again, for what? No better solutions than now.”

Hoster Tully had glared at Lord Stark. Tywin had heard of how the Lord of Riverrun demanded a marriage between his daughters and the Lords of Winterfell and the Vale in return for his support during the war, and Eddard Stark had agreed-but would not marry the girl before the end of the war. The future had been even less certain then, and Lord Stark had agreed to marry the girl should he survive and signed a contingency betrothal between the girl and his younger brother left behind in Winterfell, should he fall in battle. Jon Arryn would put forth similar agreements, betrothing himself to the younger Lysa Tully, with a contingency for a marriage to his heir should he fall in battle. 

Lord Tully had not liked those terms, especially in regards to the Vale where Jon Arryn’s heir was a babe named Harrold Hardyng. It would have been kinder to betroth the girl to Elbert Arryn, but the Mad King had taken the boy’s life when he had followed Brandon Stark to King’s Landing a year past. Lord Tully had almost refused to join the rebel effort but was persuaded to agree by Jon Arryn. Tywin had heard word the man had wanted to send for his daughter, to marry her to Stark as soon as possible, before even the matter of the crown was settled. It seemed the Lord of the Riverlands trusted his allies not enough to believe they would honour their promises. 

Tywin had thought to use that, in order to bring the Riverlands to his side of the debate. After all, he had only agreed to join the rebels when Jon Arryn had promised that Robert’s queen would be none other than his Cersei. The young Storm Lord would not have liked that agreement, but the Lord of the Vale had been blunt. Even if Lyanna Stark could be recovered, unlikely at this point, the girl’s virtue and reputation would be beyond repair. The realm would not welcome a defiled and ravaged girl as their new queen, and that was the truth of it no matter what Robert wanted. And though this agreement had needs been kept from the other rebel lords, he and Lord Arryn had had an arrangement, one that Tywin sought to bring to fulfillment with Stannis.

“Westeros needs a king,” Lord Tully spoke in clipped tones, and said nothing that could be disputed. “Regardless of whether your bannermen like it or not, a king must be declared. We will have war again, if we fail in that regard.”

“We will have war, regardless,” Lord Stark would not be swayed. “We cannot ignore that truth, either. Stannis or Viserys, or any other we could elevate-we will have war again.”

“That does not mean we forget why we are here,” Lord Arryn fixed his former ward with a disapproving look. “We are all wounded, Ned, with the loss of Robert, but we cannot throw the realm into the fire. Our men too wish to return home, to their families. But we cannot yet march them home. It would be the height of dishonour to leave without a crowned king. We took up arms against an unjust king, to crown another in his stead, and crown another we shall.”

And it was into this chaos Stannis, the man Tywin would have made king, said the words that would eventually win the day: “The Seven Kingdoms were only ever one under the dragons; they bent only for the might of the dragonriders. The dragons are gone-why should their kingdom continue when they do not?”

Things were not simple after that, but the words soon proved prophetic.

And then Tywin called his daughter to Harrenhal. She was to have a crown, after all.

Just not the one he had promised.)

~*~

The world had changed at Harrenhal, and the people were given little enough choice in the outcome. Even those like Cersei, higher in status than the smallfolk, were bound by words and laws she had no hand in making.

As they approached the twisted spires of Harrenhal, Cersei could see the grounds were covered in tents and banners. It looked like the days of that ill-fated tourney, where Jaime gave himself over to the king and Rhaegar shamed his wife in favour of the wolf-girl. So many from that time were dead and gone now, she thought perhaps there was some merit to the whispers of a curse upon the keep. Harrenhal hosted more unhappiness than most other places in the Seven Kingdoms-save, perhaps, for charred ruins of Summerhal and King’s Landing.

_It all ends in fire_ , she mused as the wheelhouse rocked and brought her closer and closer to her father and whatever fate he had planned for her. Three hundred years after the Conquest and the Targaryens were still laying waste to the Seven Kingdoms with fire.

Her father and his bannermen had recovered their colours, and the red and gold standard shone brightly closest to the entrance of the keep, next to the blue and red of Riverrun. The nearer they approached, the more that could be seen. The rebels flew the greatest number of banners, the blues, blacks, and the greys of Arryn, Baratheon, and Stark mixed together to the westerly side of the castle. The combined banners of the five high lords spread out all around Harrenhal, an endless sea of colours. The men they passed seemed merry, songs and hearty shouts coming from all corners. Her father’s bannermen even cheered as the wheelhouse went past, shouts of _Casterly Rock_ and enthusiastic, mangled renditions of the Rains of Castamere sprung up from all over.

Genna nudged her and then indicated the men who cheered their arrival. “Smile for them,” her aunt urged.

“Why?” she demanded, voice acidic in distaste. “They bellow and shout while my brother is dead, he who would have been their lord.”

“Because, they have been to war in your family’s name-and because a real ruler does not let the smallfolk see them grieve,” Genna tucked a strand of Cersei’s face and continued to smile gently though her tone was far sterner. “A ruler must be above the common man, almost removed from mortal concerns. You are a reflection of your people, but always a more dignified way of being. If they weep and grieve, you mourn with a raised chin and solemnity. If they cheer and holler in celebration, you smile to show them you too are pleased. You are always a level above, but of the same sentiment. Remember Aerys, ruining all happy occasions with his sneering and cruelty. Remember how he laughed when he burned people, while all around him were silent in horror. They hated Aerys, and called him Mad, because he was so horridly opposite to the rest of the realm. If you smile with them now, just a little, they will cheer and love you for it. If you glare and scold them, they will stop cheering to placate you, but they will resent you for it. Fear is important in ruling, my dove; love is too.”

It was a different lesson than the one her father usually gave on power. _Lions do not concern themselves with the opinions of sheep_ , Tywin would say. And yet the Lord of Lions was constantly marshalling his children, for any misstep on their part could hurt the reputation he had worked so hard to rebuild for his family. 

Her aunt nudged her once more, and she relented. Cersei turned her face to the men beyond the window of the wheelhouse and deigned to smile a small smile for their joy. As Genna said, the men reacted with a deafening roar and more shouts of _Casterly Rock_. She watched their joy and fought to keep the slight smile on her face when the anger flared inside her once more. Tyrion, seated across from her and too short to be seen by their father’s men beyond. So he looked to her instead, and then waved at her.

Her smile fell then, and she frowned at him. He shook his head and pointed to the window. “Wave,” he instructed her, demonstrating a quick, slow wave with his own hand. Cersei scowled at him, but Genna hummed in approval. Rolling her eyes at her brother, Cersei turned back the small window, smiled her fake little smile again and then lifted her hand in a small wave. 

The men roared again, and now the chants increased in frequency. Amidst the cheers came a new chant, and Cersei could not help the tiny shiver of glee inside when she heard the men shout wildly _Lioness! Lioness! Lioness!_

Her pleased demeanour lasted up until they arrived at the gates of the keep. Their guards talked quickly to the guards at the gate and soon the wheelhouse entered the courtyard of the keep. Tyrion, who had never been to Harranhal before, made an astonished sort of noise as he looked up through the window to the melted towers above. He said nothing more, but a genuine sort of smile came over his face as he looked here and there, wherever he could manage. He seemed entranced by the disfigured keep and Cersei remembered how infatuated Tyrion had been with dragons a few years past. He had read books and collected dragon toys from those relatives who were fond of him-all things that ended when Tywin learned of it.

_Lions do not worship other creatures_ , he had said before taking all of the imp’s toys and books. The dwarf had made no attempt to stop his father, though Jaime had tried on his behalf. Tyrion had merely watched his things taken from him with watery eyes. She tried to think but could not recall if Tyrion had ever been so exuberant about another topic since. He had learned to hide his fancies from the household, it seemed, and though it was always Jaime who cared for their brother, even Cersei could admit that was sad.

What becomes of him now that Jaime is gone? There was little comfort left to the littlest Lannister now. Their aunt was fond of him, but she would soon return to her Frey husband and there would be much time between her visits. Their uncle Gerion would give him some comfort, the youngest of their father’s brothers had some affection for Tyrion, whether genuine or to mock his older brother Cersei could not guess. But Gerion never stayed at the Rock long, having consented to stay recently due to the outbreak of the war. Once things were settled, Gerion would soon find his brothers as stifling as he usually did and would depart again for adventure beyond the Westerlands.

Cersei doubted that she would even return to the Rock from Harrenhal, though she doubted her little brother would miss her at all. She had not been sisterly to him at all, unable even now to separate his existence from the death of her mother. A mother whose memory faded ever so more with time, but a mother still. Joanna Lannister probably was not proud of her daughter, for she doubted she could keep her secrets from the dead. And if perhaps she could have forgiven Cersei for failing to be maternal to the dwarf in her absence, her mother would not have forgiven her for what she shared with Jaime. She wondered if Jaime went to their mother when he died, she wondered if Joanna had accepted or shunned him for the love he bore Cersei. It made her heart twist to think that her beloved brother might have found his way to their mother only to have her turn him away.

_Mothers are meant to be made of mercy, are they not? If she was ever a true mother, then she will have to forgive him-and me._

The door to the wheelhouse opened and Uncle Gerion looked in and grinned at them. “Good, you brought my nephew,” Gerion reached in with a hand and tussled Tyrion’s hair, to the delight of the imp and the consternation of their aunt. 

“Stop that!” Genna slapped away her brother and hurriedly rushed to coax Tyrion’s hair into a seemly style. “He’s going before Tywin-let him look his best.”

“I doubt my hair will somehow make me look presentable,” Tyrion’s words echoed her unvoiced thoughts, and though he tried to be lighthearted about it, there was a slight edge of pain in his tone. A boy not yet one and ten, and already hardening himself against a judgemental world. Cersei scowled when she thought of it, annoyed that she should think of her little brother in any sympathy. Jaime’s passing had made her sentimental to some degree. Not enough for her to comfort the dwarf, but enough for her to think on him with some kindness. She liked it not.

As Gerion helped them all out of the carriage, Cersei’s thoughts flew back to the night upon the ramparts, when she had wept onto Tyrion’s shoulder, a moment of shared grief between the two siblings. They had both loved and been loved by Jaime, and though Cersei was certain the bond between her twin and herself was stronger and more powerful than the one between the brothers, she was not so unkind to pretend it wasn’t there. It was Jaime that drove Tyrion to the ramparts that night, a desire to comfort the beloved sister of his beloved older brother. No matter the poetry he gave her in excuse, Cersei knew that he had come to watch over her for Jaime’s sake. The thought burrowed itself into the back of her mind, and though she would show him no maternal or sisterly affection, she perhaps could refrain from causing him hurt.

_Would you be proud of me then, mother? Jaime? I won’t love the little beast, but I can tolerate him-maybe one day be kind? Or at least polite?_

“Come,” Gerion led them into the keep, the corridors as full and teeming as the grounds outside. “They’ve changed everything-that they thought of such a mad plan was one thing. But carrying out it in law and deed is brazen and near foolish. I’ve never been more proud of old Winnie.”

“He’ll have your head if he hears you calling him that,” Genna smirked at her youngest brother. “And why do you mock us so? Tell us of this madness and put an end to your shameless teasing.”

“Never,” Uncle Gerion was a handsome man, and his smile alone was often enough to send silly women into mindless titters and swoons. But Cersei was less charmed and struggled not to demand answers. His games were aggravating her to no end-she would have the truth of it now.

But Gerion seemed determined not to answer, and to run them ragged. He dragged them through the corridors, past the Hall of the Hundred Hearths which was also full of people. On and on they went, traveling near half of the massive castle before coming to the Kingspyre Tower, where Tywin had decided to keep his apartments. They found him in the solar, Uncles Kevan and Tygett anchored on either side of their father. A map was laid out on the table in front of them, Tygett with his finger on it and obviously in the midst of a disagreement with Kevan, when they entered.

Rather than announcing their arrival, Gerion flashed his sister a knowing smirk before inexplicably dropping to his knees. “Your Grace, your children and our sister just arrived from the West.”

_Your Grace?_ Cersei blinked in confusion, eyes wandering to find Tyrion’s, the dwarf also clearly bewildered. Aunt Genna made an indelicate snorting noise, but Tywin and his brothers barely blinked. _Your Grace?_

Her father, Tywin Lannister . . . king of the Seven Kingdoms? What exactly had gone on with the other rebel lords?

“Oh, that is quite enough,” Genna rolled her eyes at Gerion and gave his rump a little kick. “Him, I expect such nonsense. But you, Tywin, I expect more. Enough with the secrets-what is happening?”

Tywin Lannister looked up from the table slowly, eyes flickering over the tittering Gerion still bowed before him. There was something fierce and proud shining in those green eyes-something very self-satisfied. Her father looked so pleased that he even continued to look thus when his eyes fell upon Tyrion. That was discomforting, and even Tyrion thought so as he dared a look up at her before shuffling a bit awkwardly in the silence that filled the room.

“Come,” Tywin finally spoke, gesturing to the other chairs at the table. Servants appeared from the shadows, moving away the map and dispensing plates and cups without being told. “We have much to discuss.”

It was over a delicate Arbor wine and a plate of fine cheeses and meats, Tywin explained to his children how the world had been remade at a Great Council of Lords just three weeks past. He had brought back the map he and his brothers conferred over before, showed them the new Westeros and how the borders of the Seven Kingdoms had been redrawn. A crown and a throne for each Lord Paramount, the kingdom that was once one was now eight in actuality: Dorne to the very south, the Reach just above it, the Stormlands and Vale to the east, the Westerlands and Riverrun to the west, the Iron Islands, and the North. The Crownlands had gone to the Stormlands, a gift in honour of their fallen lord Robert. The Greyjoys had not seen fit to bring themselves to the council when called, but it appeared none on the mainland had much use for the Iron Islands and opted to leave them to fend for themselves. The entire work of the Conquest undone in one afternoon’s work.

Tywin would become King of the Westerlands, and Casterly Rock would be his royal seat. His children would now be royal as well, and Cersei’s title went from that of Lady Lannister to Princess Cersei Lannister. Tywin explained that to her first, no doubt to bolster her mood in light of the news he revealed next.

Tywin had taken a crown for himself-and a wife. Her father had married Princess Catelyn Tully of the Riverlands three days before their arrival. And whatever rage she had been working herself into upon the news of her new lady-mother, Tywin easily offset with his final act of triumph.

In two days time, Cersei would wed Eddard Stark to become the Queen in the North.

**************************************************************************************************************************


	2. these storms have raged too long

**Chapter Two-these storms have raged too long**

She has never, not once in her life, been disgusted by her father.

Tywin Lannister was not a man easy to love; he was not prone to providing comfort or even acknowledgements. He was a man with a firm hand and a sharp mind-and an unshaking belief in his own righteousness. He was ruthless and pragmatic-he dealt out justice and punishment not because it excited him. Her father was not Aerys in lion’s skin; he simply understood the long term consequences of failing to act. He was quick, resolute, and unforgiving. The ‘Rains of Castamere’ was not just a song, it was a warning.

And Cersei was not sure if she had any affection for her father. She admired him, felt pride in being his daughter, and wanted his approval so desperately that its denial had wounded her far more than she would ever admit. But she had always respected her father.

And then he married a girl just one year her senior-and expected her to be happy about it.

The news of her father’s marriage almost numbed her to his announcement regarding her own impending wedding. The dual revelations burned through her small reserve of patience and Cersei did not wait for her father’s leave to stand up and leave the table. He called her, once, and in her rage she paid him no heed. She stormed her way out of the solar and terrorized a passing maid into leading her to the rooms set aside for her family. Genna stepped out of the solar just as Cersei pushed the girl down the hall, calling after her in vain.

Once delivered to a suitable room, Cersei allowed the girl to flee. There was a bed in the far corner of the room, as well as a small writing table with chair to the left side. Two more chairs were arranged before a small round table to the right of the bed, set before a large window that overlooked a large and crowded courtyard. It was bare besides the necessities, and she felt slighted because she wanted to throw something at the walls, at the windows, while she screamed her frustration for all to hear. She eyed one of the smaller chairs with violent intent, but the door opened behind her, stopping her rampage before it could begin.

She was not pleased by the interruption.

Tywin looked as calm as ever, hands clasped behind his back as he gazed upon his daughter expectantly. Cersei could feel her anger burning in her throat, but also a disappointment that she couldn’t quite name. Tears threatened in the corners of her eyes and she cursed them fervently. Her father would not take her seriously if he thought her about to weep. 

“You-“ she stuttered and stopped before drawing in a long breath in hopes of chasing the wavering in her tone. That her father just waited, looking at her with mild annoyance, caused her anger to burst from her chest in an uncontrollable flood. “How could you? How could you! You do nothing but tell me I will be queen-for years, it is all I hear! Jaime will be Lord of the Rock and I Queen in King’s Landing-you promised and promised and promised! And now? When you have the chance to finally fulfill your promises, you do what? You grab a crown for yourself and a buxom, young girl to warm your bed? Forget the Lion king-they will call you the Lecher King, for that is what you are!”

He did not like that, for his look of annoyance abruptly changed to a displeased frown. “Cersei, mind your-“

“You think I do not know what you are doing?” Cersei cannot find the strength to stop herself, and she didn’t want to look for such strength. She knew no other way to wound her father but with her words, and had never before now found the courage to do so. “Do you think that I don’t understand? What? You’ve lost Jaime, but oh well, the Tully girl is young enough to give you more sons, another heir-did you even bother to mourn him before you plotted how best to replace him?”

Tywin’s face froze before he took a large step forward, green eyes lit with a fury she recognized. “Cersei! That is enough! I will not let you use your brother’s memory to-”

“You killed my brother!” and she balled up her fists and slammed them into his chest before she could even understand what she was doing. He stumbled back, more in shock than due to the force of the blows, and she was so hysterical that she barely noticed. She frantically beat her hands upon his chest, more in frustration than in violence, as she condemned him again and again. “You killed him when you went to war! Aerys wouldn’t have done anything if you had gone to him-you could have saved my brother but you chose your ambition, as always! He is not dead a year and you make plans to replace him! What manner of beast-“

Cersei had never been struck as a child. Her father had never raised a hand to her. She had had her knuckles hit by stern septas, but only with her father’s permission. Tywin never lifted a hand to her, though not because he was indulgent. She paid for her disobedience through Jaime, who was often slapped in front of her as a warning. But Jaime had always taken the punishment with quiet resolve and smiled at her right after-he had always been her knight. But the day their father discovered how the twins had often disguised her in Jaime’s clothes so that she might go to his lessons instead of her own-that day had been bad. Tywin never raised his voice, but had a leather strap brought to him. The ensuing punishment had scared her so bad that she never dared to defy her father so brazenly again. Though Jaime later told her it was all right, she had had nightmares about the sounds of the strap striking her brother’s back and Jaime’s muffled cries. She had learned her father’s limits at a young age.

In her current grief, she had forgotten them.

It was not a particularly powerful strike, enough to turn her head and redden her skin, but not quite enough to bruise. The pain was secondary to the act itself, the shock of it causing her mind to seize and her mouth unable to keep up with her litany of recriminations. She skittered away from her father, not stopping until her the back of her legs hit her bed and cause her to fall back onto the furs. Her hand cradled her red cheek and her breathing was shallow and erratic. She could not stop staring at him, the shock robbed her of any further words but the tears finally broke from their prison and splashed down her cheeks.

Tywin took not a minute to calm himself, clasping his hands together again and walking until he was standing in the center of the room. “He was your twin, and you loved him more than any other. I know this, and so I will forgive this outburst as an extension of your grief. But do not mistake me Cersei; I will not have you challenge me on Jaime ever again. As cold as you might think me, I pray you never face the day that I did, with the news that your child has died because you could not save him from his enemies soon enough.”

There was a terrible silence as both father and daughter regarded each other coldly. Cersei dropped her hand from her cheek and wiped at her face until the wetness was gone. She straightened her spine and glared at her father but dared not to speak.

“Once I leave this room, this whole incident will be forgotten, but remember this: the world is changed. I am not just your father, for the next two days I am also your king. And you will show the proper deference or I will have you shipped off to the Silent Sisters before the end of the week. You say I failed to make you a queen-I did not. I may have failed to make you Rhaegar’s queen, but I have made you a queen in the end. And now you show me how unsuited you are for such an honour. I would rather bare the single embarrassment of breaking your engagement with Eddard Stark than suffer a lifetime of embarrassments and shame when you prove yourself unworthy of being a queen. Am I clear, daughter?”

Cersei swallowed a mouthful of angry words and nodded sharply. Tywin sighed and then seated himself by the window. He looked down at the courtyard below and not at her when he spoke next. “There has not been a King in the Westerlands for three hundred years. I would have never taken another wife if I had remained a Lord Paramount, or if Jaime had been returned to me. I have had many opportunities to take a buxom, young lady to wife, or even to bed, but I have not. Your mother is irreplaceable. But I will not be the first King of the Rock in three hundred years only to die without an heir.”

Her anger had not completely dissipated just yet. “You have Tyrion.”

The mention of her little brother had her father near growling in anger. “Don’t be stupid! A dwarf king would be the ruin of our house, and you say it so flippantly! If you are in no mind to talk sensibly, I will leave.”

“Forgive me, father.”

“Your Grace,” Tywin corrected her firmly. “Get used to such titles, Cersei. You are about to have your own.”

And she wanted that, would perhaps have been happy with it, if not for where that title would take her. “But the North-why not the Stormlands?”

“The war is over, Cersei, but not the resentment. It is not an easy thing we have done, and some say we do it over the bodies of those more deserving. Eddard Stark and Stannis Baratheon share one thing in common; they are second sons that were never trained to be a Lord Paramount. Hoster Tully, Jon Arryn, and I have ruled our lands for decades-we have the loyalty and confidence of our banners. Stark and Baratheon are young, inexperienced, and not the men their banners thought to follow. Stark will have an easier time of it; he has at least led his banners into war. Stannis followed his brother, and spent the majority of the war under siege from the Tyrells. He is not strong enough to foster the confidence of his banners.”

Cersei still did not understand. “Then an alliance between the Lannisters and Baratheons would only help to bolster the new Storm King, would it not?”

“It would,” Tywin finally looked away from the window and back to her. “But I have met Stannis Baratheon. He is rigid, immovable, and without a speck of humour. The smuggler that saved his life during the siege, the men call him the Onion Knight for the food he brought to them. Stannis knighted the smuggler for his aid, but also took four of his fingers as punishment for being a smuggler. The man will not bend, and while that is admirable at times, even the strongest branch will break if it fails to bend with the tempest. I could not marry you to this man, though it would keep you closer to home. He would never listen to you, nor heed a word of advice. You might have even been tempted to kill him, such is his obstinacy.”

Tywin rose to his feet and walked until he could take a seat closer to her on the edge of the bed. Cersei tensed at his sudden closeness, the sting in her cheek not yet faded. He did not deign to take her hand, or any sort of action meant to signal comfort. It was better he did not. It would have been too false for her to stomach. But he looked her right in the eyes as he spoke, and though her anger still flared in the back of her mind, she kept quiet.

“Stannis would breed nothing but disdain and anger in you. You would act out, and he would respond harshly, and I would be left with the dilemma of whether to break an alliance with four other kingdoms for your sake or look the other way while my daughter is mistreated. Janei is quieter, more docile like her mother. Your Uncle Kevan and Stannis have both already agreed to the match.”

_Janei is a child of three and ten_ , Cersei looked down at her hands, clenched tightly in her lap. _I’d be surprised if she’s even flowered yet. Not that Uncle Kevan nor father would be bothered if she had not. They’d hardly let such a thing as a child’s innocence stop them from selling that child for their own benefit_.

“Eddard Stark is different,” Tywin continued. “He is young, but battle-tested. In fact, on the battlefield he is quite impressive. But what I’ve seen of him at the council and at the negotiating table, he is too naïve. He thinks of honour only; he is pragmatic in no way at all. He would walk willingly into a trap because he would believe that others would be honour-bound by their word alone. His father was a similar sort; he believed Aerys when the king said he would return the elder son if Rickard won a trial by combat. If there was any sense in that family, Lord Rickard would have gone north to raise his banners-a daughter kidnapped and a son imprisoned, more than enough cause for uprising. But he didn’t, and then it fell to Eddard.”

Tywin paused, looking at her in an appraising manner. “Eddard led his men well, and the northern banners love him for it. But this love is for war only-they feel his actions on the battlefield have more than responded to the insult done to liege lord’s house. They even hailed him as King in the North before we had settled matters here. Now, Eddard has to go home and rule. This is where he will be weak, and this is where he will need you. He might have sufficed as a Lord Paramount, but a kingship is no little thing. Not all are happy with the division of the kingdom, and there are Targaryens out there still. Viserys and a girl-child have fled to Essos with a Darry knight. A day might come when the dragons try to conquer once more.”

“But I don’t understand,” and she did her best to speak calmly, without a hint of the desperation she still felt. “How these particular matches came to be-wasn’t Catelyn Tully already married to Eddard Stark? That was the news when we were in Casterly Rock.”

“Betrothed,” Tywin corrected, and a smirk began to pull at the corners of his mouth. “And we are lucky for it. If Eddard had been married to Catelyn Stark, we wouldn’t have been able to make any matches at all. You might have been stuck with Stannis, or I forced to leave my crown to Kevan’s Lancel. Breaking the betrothal was hard enough-Stark had wanted to honour his word to Hoster Tully. Thank the Seven that Hoster Tully and Jon Arryn were able to see reason. We need to strengthen the ties between our five houses, to the point that if the loyalists ever try to rise again, they would meet the same fate. This new world only works if we stay firm to one another. I imagine Tully was also convinced by having his eldest daughter closer to home.”

_Were that you felt some of that same fatherly affection_. Cersei watched as her father rose and went back to standing by the window. “We must get this new world working properly. Wool, timber, and hides from the North must flow into the markets, food and grains from the others must flow back upwards especially when winter approaches. We will need a market for our minerals, not just the gold and silver. Between the five of us, we have little need for the Reach and its provisions. We will welcome them, but our alliance can maintain the five of us. The others have to be permitted into our trade and alliances-they must learn to live at our mercy. And that means we must be a united front to the rest of the world-marriages accomplish that. Lannisters married into the North and the Stormlands, Tullys married into the Vale and the Westerlands, and a bond of love between the North and the Vale. If we want to keep what we have taken, then this is it.”

He turned back to her, pinned with an icy green glare. “I have not sold you, daughter. I have sent you to do the most important work there is. Take the wolf to husband, take the North and make it something worth allying ourselves with. The North is underdeveloped and many of its keeps have fallen to disrepair-the northmen would leave it thus. They are not an enterprising people; you must make them something more. I am trusting you with this, Cersei. Not Jaime, not Tyrion, not any of my siblings-you. I have not trusted anyone to do such necessary work before. Do not disappoint me.”

Tywin wanted to leave at that, for he had nothing left to say. But he walked to the middle of the room once more and waited, eyes looking at her expectantly once more. Cersei warred between pride in her father’s trust and the suspicion that he merely sold her a pretty lie to make her more accommodating. She had no way to know for sure his true intentions, but she knew enough of her father to know what he waited for.

She rose to her feet and sank into a curtsey before him. “Your Grace,” she murmured, soft and gentle-her best maidenly impression. He responded with a curt nod and another pressing look before walking out the door and shutting it behind him.

She didn’t throw anything then; she settled for tearing the sheets to shreds and screaming into her pillow. And then she called for her aunt.

There was work to be done.

~*~

(Her aunt had already started.

Genna had retreated to the others when Cersei refused to listen. She fell into her chair and glared meaningfully at her eldest brother. “Well?”

Kevan and Tygett were both in the midst of hiding their discomfort (Kevan) and amusement (Tygett) while Gerion was too busy cramming food into his mouth to be bothered with his family’s dramatics. Tywin merely rolled his eyes and made a dismissive gesture with his hands. “I will not deal with her until she is done acting a child.”

_The Seven take your damned pride, Tywin_ , Genna shook her head. “She is not acting a child, Tywin; she is _your_ child. Her twin is dead, you have given her a new mother whose is of an age with her, and have decided to send her North without so much as an inquiry after her tastes.”

“She could do worse than being the first Queen in the North in three hundred years,” her brother refused to yield the point.

“She is hurting, brother,” Genna sighed heavily. “Jaime is dead and she is hurting. Cersei is the product of your care-she is vain, tempestuous, and will carry this grudge with her to the North, undoing whatever work you think you have accomplished here. Go to your daughter-she has need of you”

Tywin remained unmoving and Genna tried her last trick. “Please, your grace?”

He knew her too well, as she knew him. But there was no hiding away the faint smile on his face. “You make too much sense, dear sister. But I suppose there is no denying the truth of what you say; Cersei needs to be handled. Things are still too delicate.”

Kevan and Tygett actually stood when Tywin rose; Gerion did not rise until Tygett slapped the back of his head none too gently and she shook her head but rose as well. So did Tyrion, though it was hard enough seeing the top of his little head over the table even when he was sitting. Tywin left without further ceremony and Gerion was the first to throw himself back into his seat, hand already making its way back to the food. Tyrion climbed into the chair next to his favourite uncle and began to quietly needle the man for something or the other. Genna also retook her seat and slid her eyes back to her other brothers.

“Well? What in the seven hells have you lot done?”

The story came in spurts, started by Kevan and carried by on Tygett and Gerion when both felt the need to speak. The inability to see a future for the Seven Kingdoms as a unit, no agreement on the future king, and the fallout from the destruction of King’s Landing. Tygett interrupted with talks of Dragonstone and the failed attempt to apprehend the remaining Targaryens before they fled across the Narrow Sea. Kevan attempted to bring the story to its conclusion but Gerion spoke up with the story of how Eddard Stark was just newly returned from Dorne.

“Left right in the middle of negotiations,” Gerion had his feet up on the table like a heathen, which Tyrion quietly tried to imitate but couldn’t for the want of length. Their nephew settled for kicking his feet up on Gerion’s own armrest and her brother paused a second to offer the child a smile and a ruffling of his hair. And Genna’s heart warmed because for all his foolishness, Gerion at least was free with his love for Tyrion, something the boy was starved for, and would be even more starved for now that Jaime had died. Genna wondered if Tyrion knew the significance behind Tywin’s new marriage, of the underlying intention to deny him his rights to Casterly Rock and his father’s new crown. He most likely did; Tyrion was endlessly clever, and getting better and better at covering up his disappointment.

“It seemed there were rumours of his sister being in Dorne,” Kevan continued when Gerion abandoned his story to give his attention to Tyrion. “King Eddard left immediately with a small host of men. His search led the men to the Tower of Joy. It’s said they encountered the three remaining members of the Kingsguard there; Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Oswell Whent, and Lord Commander Hightower. A skirmish ensued and the Kingsguard died there, along with five of His Grace’s own men.”

“Was the girl even there?”

Tygett nodded. “Aye, and dying of a fever no less. Rhaegar apparently ravaged the poor girl and stashed her in the tower, presumably for future use after the war? He left the three knights to guard his treasure. And none of the great and noble warriors thought to send for a maester when the girl became ill.”

Genna hummed, but said little more. _Rhaegar could not have been so depraved, could he? Were we all so wrong about the prince? Or were we blinded by our desire for any king other than Aerys?_

“But you left out the best part of the story!” Gerion jumped back into the tale with relish. Tyrion had been lifted from his seat and had somehow made his way to sitting atop his uncle’s shoulders with his two fists bunched in Gerion’s curls. “The good wolf king came back with a bastard!”

Now Genna was alarmed. “Eddard Stark has a bastard?”

“King Eddard Stark,” Gerion corrected her, swaying slightly to toss Tyrion this way and that while the boy struggled to contain his laughter. “More kings these days, best be mindful.”

“No, King Eddard does not have a bastard,” Kevan looked exasperated, as he usually did when forced to spend time with an idle Gerion. “He collected the bastard from Starfall when he returned Ser Arthur Dayne’s sword to his sister. She apparently handed him the babe in return-her child by Brandon Stark, it would seem. She refused to care for the child any longer and it’s said she promptly threw herself from the Palestone Sword tower to her death after the king’s departure.”

“That didn’t please the River King at all,” Tygett laughed gruffly and helped himself to more wine. “Nor the Princess Catelyn. It seems to have shattered some of her romantic notions about her former betrothed and made her a little less predisposed to his younger brother. It made the new alliances a bit easier to arrange. And that, my dear sister, is how our sweet Cersei became the future Queen in the North.”

There was a light smattering of laughter at the word ‘sweet’ used in relation to Cersei. Her niece was beautiful, willful, and not as inept at political strategy as her father thought her to be, but no one in her family thought to call her sweet. Cersei was too fierce to be sweet, but she could be loved.

They needed her to be loved. And by Eddard Stark no less.

Genna sighed, mind heavy with the task that lay before her. She looked to her brothers, dismissing each in turn. Kevan had no mind for strategies beyond the battlefield and Tygett had no patience for the work she needed done. Gerion might be able to do it, but he was as liable to offend the northmen as he was to charm them. He lacked the focus that she needed. It left her with but one option.

Tyrion was smart, absorbed knowledge and tricks like a sponge. He had not yet tried to manipulate those around him, but once he learned the trade, Genna knew he would excel at it. And circumstances as they were, she led him from the room for quick instruction.

The northmen would talk of it often in the coming years, always causing their king to chuckle in memory and earning either a smile or scowl from their queen (quite dependent on her mood). The story of how Tywin Lannister’s little dwarf son had marched his way to the Widow’s Tower and demanded an audience with the King in the North.

“My sister has no brother left but me,” he had stated, with the exact right amount of severity and nerves that Genna had suggested he show. “And though I am little in all the ways that matter, I will know if the king is worthy of my sweet sister. Jaime is not alive to do it, but all should know that Cersei Lannister has yet a brother who looks to her happiness.”

And really, it was the kind of drivel the North loved to hear.)

~*~

Her eyes were still red, her skin still blotchy. Genna arrived within an hour of being called for, a rather long time to wait when your patience was as thin as Cersei’s had always been. To her horror, the longer she waited the more desperate she felt, until she finally burst into tears. She was absolutely fed up with crying, yet could do nothing to stop.

Genna found her in such a state when her aunt finally deigned to show up. Lady Frey looked sympathetic, but unsurprised. “Well, considering how Tywin is, I suppose this is as good as I could have hoped for,” her aunt enfolded her into a motherly embrace and Cersei wept with renewed vigour. She was not even sure why she still cried, only that she could not stop.

Genna murmured and swayed and petted her hair until at last Cersei’s tears abated and the only sound she could make were hiccups. Genna then called for a washing basin, some cloths, and a comb. Once supplied, her lady aunt cleaned her face, wiped her cheeks, and then set to work on her hair. Cersei closed her eyes as Genna worked her fingers through the tangled mess Cersei had created in the midst of her tantrum. She first let down the elaborate braids Cersei had the maids create that morning, letting the hair fall against Cersei’s back. Then Genna rubbed and massaged her scalp and her temples, hands and fingers delicately pushing and applying pressure that soon helped chase away the headache Cersei had only been dimly aware of before. Once done with untangling all the knots in her long, golden hair, Genna twisted it into a simple long braid that she tied off with a ribbon produced from somewhere or the other.

She then led Cersei to the bed and bade the girl lay down with her head in her aunt’s lap. Genna began talking then, nonsense that wasn’t that important and other things of recent events that Cersei had figured out on her own. Genna rubbed soothing circles on Cersei’s upper arms and back as she spoke, and finally the desperation began to dull. It was still there, and perhaps would not go away any time soon; but it was not so sharp as to rob her of her senses anymore.

“Father expects me to fix the North,” Cersei whispered into the quiet room.

Genna chuckled. “I wasn’t aware the North was broken.”

Cersei snorted. “It’s backwards and barbaric-they harken on tradition so much that they have almost been left behind by all the other nations. Father bade me to make the North industrious; to make it an ally worthy of the Westerlands. I don’t know if he means it or if it was said to placate me. Either way, I have so much work to do and know not whether I can summon the will for it. How can I change an entire kingdom of ice into something worthwhile?”

“With love,” Genna gently eased Cersei into a sitting position and smiled gently. “This can only be accomplished by love.”

Cersei snorted indelicately. “I am not a soft woman; I cannot simper and cajole and pretend to be the Mother come to life. I haven’t the patience for such nonsense-and besides, Father has always said a firm hand and an iron will is what makes a good ruler.”

“And he is not wrong,” Genna agreed, rising from the bed to call for the maids once more. A quick word at the door and soon there is wine and food being brought to the little table by the window. Genna motioned for Cersei to sit, poured the girl a cup of wine before sitting herself. “I think you have mistaken me; be as hard and shrewd as you need to be. Men often don’t respect much else; but it is like I said before, in the wheelhouse, the people must love you as well. Yes, they need to fear your judgement, respect your power; but if you are to make them yours, bend them to your will and have them carry out your designs, they must also love you in equal measure.”

Cersei was doubtful. “You think the smallfolk of the Westerlands love my father?”

“That is different; he is a man. Unfortunately for us, we have to work twice as hard as men to be a fraction as powerful. It is not fair, but it is doable. Love is crucial.”

“Make the northmen love me?” Cersei laughed humourlessly. “Lower myself to tending to the dirty and uncouth commoners there to maybe be granted some control over affairs? I cannot-I will not.”

Genna shook her head. “You still misunderstand; it is not the smallfolk whose love you must have. That will come, once you have the love that matters. You will need Eddard Stark to love you.”

The mention of her betrothed reignited Cersei’s fury. “That is a worse notion. Feign love for the King of Ice in the hopes of melting him enough to be considered an equal? You think they care for their highborn ladies more there than here in the south? Eddard Stark’s father intended to sell his sister Lyanna to Robert Baratheon just as assuredly as my father has sold me to Stark. They are barbarians in the North; uneducated brutes who worship trees rather than stand in the light of the Seven-you think I will love such a man?”

She would not love any man; the chance of that died with Jaime.

Genna just smiled at her growling. “Are you quite done, my dear? Gods, you are difficult to teach. I am starting to understand some of your many septas’ complaints. Wait for the lesson to finish before you judge its validity. Allow me to make my point, sweet girl, and then take your time railing against it like it would do you any good. Whatever you think of my advice, you will be happy for it in two days’ time.”

Cersei scoffed, but managed to swallow her words by draining her cup and following it with a piece of cheese to nibble. Her eyes were angry and her mouth pulling down in a frown, but she nodded for her aunt to continue.

“I am not telling you to love the man, though I pray that it might happen some day. Say what you will, my child, but the idea of you loving your husband and being happy is one that gives me great joy. But for now, I will happy if Eddard Stark loves you. If the King in the North loves the Queen, then eventually the lords who love their king will learn to love the queen. And it must be a true love, for only if he truly loves you will he trust you. If he trusts you, he will listen to you. And then you can shape the North to your liking.”

Cersei waved her hand dismissively. “I am most beautiful. He will love me on sight.”

“No, he will desire you on sight,” Genna was sharp in her reprimand. “Men do not respect that which they desire. Desire means they hope to possess, so you become a possession, a thing, and not a person. You are not going North to be a pretty decoration for the halls of Winterfell. You are going North to rule.”

“Well, then how am I to know if he truly loves me? How can I make him truly love me? I know nothing of the wolf, just that my father has made him a king,” Cersei slumped in defeat, all the talk of love and possession overwhelming her. _It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was to be the Queen in King’s Landing; Jaime was to be my knight, and we were never meant to be apart. Now he is gone and I am alone, and they bid me to make the wolf king love me._

“Then you are in luck, because your family works tirelessly on your behalf,” Genna patted her arm and pushed the plate of food closer to her. “Eat up; Tyrion will be here soon and then we shall get to work.”

Cersei stared at her aunt, utterly baffled. “Tyrion? Why must we wait for that little be-for that little boy?”

She was not sure, but her aunt seemed pleased that Cersei had avoided saying the word ‘beast’. It was her usual manner of referring to the imp, but she had to attempt to be civil. _See, Mother? I am trying._

“I have sent him on a mission,” Genna informed her in a mock whisper. “Right now, he is our man in the enemy camp. He will come back with vital information and then we shall formulate an attack.”

Cersei narrowed her eyes at her aunt. “You seem to be enjoying this, lady aunt.”

Genna laughed and refilled her cup. “Of course I’m enjoying it. Your father may be formidable on the battlefield, but when it comes to affairs of the heart-there is no better tactician than I.”

~*~

“You must love the bastard.”

Cersei did not sputter and rage at the declaration. Instead, a sense of disappointment warred with feelings of satisfaction inside her. She had told her aunt that Tyrion would not be useful to them-this just proved her point.

“He has a bastard?” was what she chose to say instead.

Tyrion shook his head. “No-well yes, there is a bastard with him, but no-it’s not his bastard. It is apparently the bastard of his dead brother and Ashara Dayne. They say when King Eddard went to return Dawn to Starfall, Lady Ashara was just out of labour and beside herself with despair. She told the king he would have to take his brother’s bastard, or she would send the child to an orphanage or the like. She said she could not bear to look on the child’s face and remember how his father played her false and especially how his uncle slayed her beloved brother.”

Cersei remained unimpressed. “He could be lying.”

Both Tyrion and Genna laughed at that. “The King in the North is not known for spinning lies; quite the opposite actually. It’s a family ailment. Why do you think Lord Brandon ended up in jail in the first place? Common sense would have sent the boy to his father or his brother in the Eeyrie for help in locating his sister. Honour dictated that he decry the prince and demand the return of his sister. Fool chose honour; King Eddard will like be the same,” Genna tapped Cersei on the top of her hand. “You need to break him of the habit.”

Cersei rolled her eyes. “With all your talking, it seems a miracle that my soon-to-be husband has lived so long. He can’t be as inept as you all think.”

Tyrion shrugged his little shoulders and swung his little legs. Even seated on a small chair, he looked tiny and miniscule. It’s a wonder one of the northmen hadn’t accidentally stepped on her brother while he was in their midst. “He does not know how to play the game. I would be surprised if he even knew there was a game. King Eddard is most straightforward; I don’t think he knows a thing of beguilement.”

_Father has chained me to a fool. Perhaps that can be to my benefit._ “But why must I love the bastard? Surely he will send it to some bannerman and I will hardly see the child.”

At this, Tyrion shared a solemn look with their aunt before answering. “He means to raise the child. In Winterfell.”

“In Winterfell?” she repeated, her voice increasing slightly in volume. “He plans to raise his bastard nephew in my home, where my children will live? Is he mad? The bastard of the younger child is less problematic than the bastard of the man who was meant to be ruler in the North. He hands his enemies a banner to gather behind of his own free will. Who is this fool?”

“Calm yourself, niece,” Genna’s eyes flickered over to the closed door. “This accursed keep is filled to overflowing. Best not to feed the gossips.”

“A bastard in my own keep,” Cersei fumed, dropping the volume of her words but not the acid behind them. “Forget making him love me; you should try harder to keep me from killing him.”

“He came back with the bastard before the alliance was formalized,” Genna consoled her. “Your father had enough foresight to include a clause that the bastard is forever removed from the line of succession. Should he ever take the throne, it is cause enough for the other four kings to bring war to the North. Keep that close to comfort you when your anger rises.”

“But that’s why the bastard is so important,” Tyrion looked to his sister in great earnest. “Not just for you, but for your children. The bastard has no mother or father; no father to resent and no mother to whisper poison in his ear. He could be your own creature; you could make him so devoted to you that his whole life purpose would be to fulfill your every whim and desire. And the wolf king would love you for it.”

“That I fawn over his brother’s bastard? That should make him love me?” Cersei glared at her family. “Why would that work?”

“What would you do, my love, to have Jaime back?” Genna watched her with sharp eyes, nodding at the tears that gathered in Cersei’s eyes at her question. “And if you couldn’t have him back, but some part of him suddenly fell into your hands? What would you do to keep it?”

It was not fair to use Jaime’s name, not when the wound had not even begun to heal. The anger now melded itself to her grief and though she wanted to hurt her aunt for bringing her beloved brother into this, the tears had dried her throat and weighed heavy upon her tongue.

Tyrion looked at her in some concern and Genna rose to come stand behind her. Her aunt settled her hands upon Cersei’s shoulders and squeezed them in a semblance of comfort. “You may think yourself so different from King Eddard, and you are right. But there is a shared pain that could bring him to you. You have lost a brother; he has lost his brother, his sister, and his father.”

“So I should simper before him, because he has lost more? Is that it? We measure the loss of Jaime to be less than the losses of House Stark?”

“Cersei, my dove, please!” Genna shook her head as she walked away from her niece and nephew. She began to pace the floor of the small room. “You are so combative; my dear, we are trying to help you succeed. And you will be robbed of us in two days. No one goes North with you to council you, to guide you, or let you rip at them to satisfy your grief. You will be on your own, niece; and I want you to be ready for it. But you do yourself no favours by fighting us every step-do you not want to Queen in reality, or only in name?”

Cersei had no answer, though surely some shame showed itself upon her face. Her fingers twisted painfully in her lap as she contemplated a life devoid of Genna’s knowing smiles, Father’s solid presence, and even Tyrion’s tentative footsteps. It was bad enough when she thought of a life without Jaime’s laughter and his arms tight around her. But to be denied what small comforts she might have left-she cursed Stannis Baratheon and whatever he had done to turn her father’s interest away.

“Sister,” and even little Tyrion had gotten to his feet and stood just beside her chair. He did not reach out for her, still aware of whatever had changed between them had not changed enough for that. But he looked at her in the same earnest way as before. “Sister, he does not seem a terrible man. He values things differently than we do. And you do not have to change yourself into the personification of the Mother to ensnare him. In fact, try not to put on any such acts of septa-like wholesomeness. He is not able to play the game, but he will see through that. Be yourself, even as you do these things that are contrary to what you want. Make it begrudging; love the bastard not because you feign a love for all children. Aunt Genna is right; your grief is real and can be a boon. Start with a shared sympathy for a child to be raised motherless; increase your involvement and care over time. Make it seem as though you have fallen in love with child despite your misgivings. Be sometimes accommodating with your husband, sometimes shrewd and demanding. You are a Lioness of the Rock; he should love you because of it, not in spite of it.”

“Desire, shrewdness, compassion, understanding, and steel,” Genna said, counting off each word on an open hand until all five fingers were folded into a fist. “And then, you rule.”

Cersei nodded as her hands unconsciously mimicked the gesture, clenching briefly into two trembling fists. “And then, I rule.”

**************************************************************************************************************************


	3. a forest of scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Explicit content in this chapter

**Chapter Three: a forest of scars**

Cersei was married amongst the trees, as her northern betrothed demanded. There was no sept, no septon, no poetic verses or vows-there were not even seats for the guests. No, her wedding guests milled amongst the trees of Harrenhal’s enormous godswood in a disorganized fashion, parting only when Aunt Genna let out a theatrical teary gasp to signal her arrival. The guests stepped back and looked to where she and her father stood, giving her a clear view of her soon-to-be husband.

Tywin had her hand settled in the crook of his arm, and gave a light squeeze indicating that they should move. Her father looked absolutely kingly, even in these surroundings. He wore a brilliant golden doublet with a scarlet lion stitched upon his breast. His cloak was the inverse, a simple red material clasped at his throat with a golden lion pin. He did not yet wear a crown, though she was sure that one had been made already. None of the newly made monarchs yet wore crowns; all had agreed that their coronations should be done when they return to their keeps, so that the smallfolk of their kingdoms could also witness and celebrate the crowning of their own rulers. The weddings were all to be concluded at Harrenhal to seal the alliance, but the coronations were kept for later. Stannis would be the last king to be wed, his little Lannister bride had arrived only just yesterday. Their wedding would be held in the sept at Harrenhal, and in three days hence. In the brief time they had had to talk yesterday, Cersei had been somewhat assured to find her cousin had flowered before their fathers had bartered her away. True, it had been just two moons past, but it was something at least. Stannis was still six years her senior, but worse matches had been made for young maids. Cersei could see evidence of it, seeing Lysa Arryn standing despondently beside her aged husband close to where the wolf king awaited his lioness bride.

Cersei had not time to settle herself to the idea of her marriage before it was upon her. The two days she had in preparation were spent in a feverish whirlwind of stitching and embroidering. Her father had not left her entirely on her own; he had commissioned a gown to be made that was to be tailored to her specifically when she arrived. It was a glorious brocade dress done in dark and light golden tones. She and Genna had cooed over it, though her aunt had nudged and poked her until Cersei submitted to adding something of her new home to the dress. She would consent to stitch either lions or wolves to the dress; they had managed to wrangle five seamstresses to their cause, but still the detail required for that would have taken too long. Tywin had been clear that there would be no delays, for whatever reason. Genna had done some sort of magic and produced silver stones and thread from somewhere. They set the seamstresses to work, constructing a simple but fetching pattern of silver snowflakes starting denser at the bottom trim and steadily lessening up the dress to eventually give way to pure gold just above her waist. She looked beautiful wearing it, but then again, she would look beautiful in most things.

Genna had been hard at work with the northerners-or rather, she had Tyrion hard at work with the northerners. Her little brother made regular trips to the Widow’s Tower the past two days, no doubt pestering every married northman in the tower for ideas on how northern weddings are conducted. Northern brides apparently forgo a veil on their wedding day, but most have flowers put into their hair. Genna was endlessly resourceful, but even she could not produce the right colour of flowers to complement Cersei’s dress in such a short time. But her aunt and little brother were cleverer than most, and near brilliant when together. Extra gold and silver cloth was bought from the cloth merchants who had already made a fortune at Harranhal that moon. Those five seamstresses were set to work again, folding and cutting and pinning the fabrics until they resembled roses. Genna had a single, thick braid crowning Cersei’s head, leaving the rest of her hair flowing down her back. The cloth roses were pinned into that braided crown, until it resembled a true crown from a distance.

She was a vision of beauty and grace; she was not boastful for thinking so, it was merely the truth. And her groom stood before the giant Harranhal weirwood, with its monstrous and scarred face. He was darkness to her brightness, wearing greys and blacks to her golds and silvers. Cersei had been expecting to be unimpressed with the wolf her father had given her to; she remembered a dour-faced youth, grown too quickly to be graceful and too skinny to be considered naught but a boy. She had seen him a few times, during that thrice-damned tourney, but had quickly dismissed him from her thoughts. Even if she had not been caught up in her golden Jaime and silver Rhaegar, her eyes would not have skipped over his brother Brandon to him. Brandon, she was not bothered to admit, had been handsome. She wondered idly how her new lady mother felt, being promised a handsome young wolf and yet getting an older, albeit handsome, lion instead.

But Eddard Stark was not the boy who came to Harranhal. He was still tall, but the war had filled out his body, making him less gangly and awkward looking. He looked broad in the shoulders now, with a chest and waist that better complemented that. His face was still longer than his brother’s had been, but the years had done him some kindness there as well. While still long, it seemed not as drawn and narrow as before. His cheeks had filled out a bit, some weight had softened the sharp angles she remembered. His hair was the same dark colour, brown that could be black if it wanted, and it came to a rest at his shoulders. He had not yet grown a beard, and though she had not noticed his eyes during the tourney, she could not escape them now. They were a stormy grey, no doubt similar to the northern clouds that brought snow to his homelands and blotted out the sun for days.

He would never be as handsome as Jaime had been, but nor could she claim him homely or unattractive. He looked solid, plain but not unappealing. Nothing about him was blindingly brilliant, but he was not forgettable.

The wolf king had a solemn look on his face, and though not frowning, neither did he smile. When she neared him, she thought she saw something like befuddlement in his eyes, quickly chased away by that cold solemnity. He did not fall over his feet at the treasure he was being given, but she had gotten a reaction, hadn’t she? Cersei contemplated him as her father walked her closer and remembered some of Genna’s advice as she passed by her aunt. She smiled at him as she and Tywin came to a stop, not a full dazzling smile that would knock a lesser man to his knees. It was a small smile, carefully practiced to convey a sense of hope and nerves and just a splash of that fierce Lannister pride. Her reward was another look of befuddlement and a bout of quick blinks to eventually usher back into the solemnity.

Her father made a noise, low in his throat, that might have been a soft laugh had it been anyone else but Tywin Lannister. It made her feel proud, regardless.

Belatedly, Eddard seemed to remember where he was. “Who comes before the gods?” he asked, voice deep and grim.

“Princess Cersei of House Lannister comes here to wed,” her father responded, his voice seeming to echo through the trees. “A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble, she comes to beg the blessings of the gods. Who comes to claim her?”

“Eddard of House Stark, lord of Winterfell and King in the North,” and there was a pleased rumbling from the attending northmen at this. “I claim her. Who gives her?”

“Tywin of House Lannister, lord of Casterly Rock and King of the Westerlands, and her father,” Tywin slowly removed her arm from his elbow and there was a pause, one that would seem like hesitation if it were any father but Tywin Lannister, before he continued. “Princess Cersei, will you take this man?”

She nodded once, not too quick to speak but not to slow either. Measured, as Genna had told her to be. “Yes, I take this man.”

Then, Tywin guided her hand to Eddard’s now outstretched one. He gave her a little squeeze when their hands first settle against one another, before tugging gently her to join him in front of the weirwood. They both knelt before the tree, Cersei not happy to have her dress press into the dirt but unable to do anything about it. They were meant to pray before the gods, but her gods were not here and she doubted the Old Gods knew of her. So she thought instead of her brother and her mother, as she did often these days. She asked her brother if he thought her beautiful on her wedding day and tried to listen for that familiar laughter of his, always half joy and half mocking. _Mother, are you proud of me today? I am marrying as duty dictates, I will birth golden wolves and spread the Lannister legacy across the North. Is that what you would have wanted for me?_

It was a silent few moments, and then Eddard rose to his feet, helping her back to hers as well. Her eyes fell close and an unbidden sigh escaped her as he removed the Lannister cloak from her shoulders. The Stark cloak that replaced it was heavier and warmer; the material itself felt rougher on her skin, though whether that was real or imagined she could not say. He took her hand once more and turned her to face him. She looked into those grey eyes and caught a glimpse of something not stormy or befuddled. She could not conjure a word for it just yet, but it seemed something of warmth. She realized, belatedly, that this was the first time she and her husband had ever stood face to face in their entire lives. He was taller than her by some inches, but nothing too extreme. And as he leaned forwards, she obliged by tilting her face upwards.

The kiss was brief, just a brush of lips. He did not have a beard, her newly made husband, and his skin was smooth where it briefly touched hers. They pulled apart and though he did not smile even now, there was a flush to his cheeks that made her feel a shiver of triumph. He held her hand as they turned to face their wedding guests.

There was applause and some cheers, most of it drowned out by the howling of the northern lords.

~*~

Their wedding feast takes place in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths, which Tyrion quickly whispered was an exaggeration as there were only some thirty-five hearths and was then hushed by her aunt lest Tywin fix his gaze upon his dwarf son. Cersei said nothing, biting back a snappish comment of her own. Tyrion was seated close to her at the high table if only because he had managed to endear himself to the northmen in his many treks to their tower. Tywin would have no doubted preferred to have Tyrion as far as possible from the feast, but Genna argued it would have looked bad with the northerners considering how much time Tyrion has spent preparing his sister for this day. And she was not ungrateful for his work, but she was still learning to mind her tongue when it came to her little brother. Cersei had nothing of a sweet temperament, as her family reminded her often enough, and it was an effort to keep herself from falling into old habits in regards to Tyrion

The high table was crowded, nonetheless, and the hall seemed fill to bursting. Everywhere she looked there was a vast array of house sigils and colours. Riverlanders mixed with stormlanders, westernmen chatted with those from the Vale and drank heartily with northmen, while those of the Reach and Dorne sat at opposite sides of the hall and did their best not to look at one another. It seemed all of Westeros was there to see her wed, and yet she felt adrift and alone. The noise and the crowd seemed to press upon her, leaving her searching for a relief that would never come. The need of Jaime reared wildly and in vain, leaving her to swallow her tears through gulps of wine and small smiles that put strain upon her face.

Genna and Tyrion kept giving her pointed looks, and she knew it was her time to talk and charm the wolf king. But for all their counsel and training, they could do nothing to stop the tremor in her hands and stinging in her eyes as she sat at the high table, newly married and utterly in despair. She would not cry and shame her father; tears had never brought her any kindness at Casterly Rock. Well, that she could remember. Perhaps her mother, that hazy, fading idea of her lady mother-perhaps Joanna had been kinder to her when she cried in her youth. Hadn’t her mother wiped her cheeks and kissed her hair when she was upset, or was that merely what she hoped Joanna had done?

And what good did hopes and wishes do anyway? Here she sat, newly married and newly made queen, in a hall bursting with people admiring her beauty. All she had dreamed of in her childish dreams of marriage and royalty. But the most ardent wishes of her heart-for her mother, and for Jaime-those were withheld from her. So Genna could cough and make little gestures while her father glared all they wanted; they knew nothing of the dark abyss that Cersei struggled not to succumb to.

The hand clutching her cup trembled even more, and Cersei cursed herself for such an obvious sign of her distress. The stinging in her eyes was quickly changing to actual tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks at any time. She was panicking, she knew without looking that Genna and Tyrion were scrambling to do something, anything, to stop what was sure to happen. But as the music roared and the guests howled and the wine flowed-there was nothing they could do.

A larger, rougher hand settled over her own, a sudden warmth that shocked her tremors into submission. Cersei dared a glance to the side, dreading the pity she thought to be waiting there. She would be unable to handle her famed temperament if he tried to pity her. Cersei may now be his wife, but she was a lioness and would suffer no man’s pity.

But there was no pity in her husband’s eyes. Eddard Stark looked at her with a similar unhappiness in the storm of his grey eyes. He squeezed her hand briefly. “They want us to look happy, as if a crown and a feast is supposed to bring an end to these dark times. War is ended quicker than the toll it extracts from us.”

He loosened his fingers, to let her hand free, but she turned her hand and grasped at his before it could pull away. _Do we now measure our loss-my one Jaime to his three? Or can we just level them all the same? Jaime was my other half, and his family is now less than half it was. The war has halved us both._ “I am not unhappy to be here, your grace. It gives me great joy to be your wife-but I cannot lie and seek to cloak myself in that joy whilst the memory of my brother lies heavy on my heart. I am sorry if that displeases you.”

He said nothing in return, grey eyes fixed upon their entwined hands. She wondered if she had gone too far, supposed too much too fast. But then there was something like a smile on her husband’s lips, though she could not say it was a smile of that bespoke of happiness. “It was here, you know? The last time I was with my family-it was at that tourney. We barely made our farewells, for we were supposed to meet again at Riverrun for Brandon’s wedding. We didn’t think-I did not imagine . . .”

She could have finished his words for him, for weren’t they be her own? Those grey eyes had gone clouded once again, an ice storm set in a face that could have been carved from stone. But he held onto her hand, and Cersei knew that Genna had been right. They shared a pain. “The last I saw my brother, my father pulled me from his side and banished me to the wheelhouse so that he might express his disappointment without my interference. It should have been a good day for him; Jaime was born to be a knight. And the Kingsguard should have brought him honour. But it was not real, nothing he had done for himself. It was a hurt in the petty squabble between two men who should have been better. The last time my brother saw his family, our father gave him scorn and then left my twin with a madman.”

Her words were more bitter than she had intended. She cleared her throat and finally let go of his hand, opting instead to clasp her two together in her lap. “Forgive me, your grace. That was unkind of me. I know how deeply my brother’s loss affected my father. The grief is sometimes too much.”

The music roared and men bellowed and the noise of the feast swelled so high for a minute that she was afraid that the bedding had been announced whilst she was busy with her husband. But it was no more than a new song, as everyone in the hall cheered and sang along with ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair’. Her husband gazed around the hall, an utterly solemn look on his face despite the joviality of the wedding guests. _He won’t be like this forever, will he?_ Jaime had smiled often, even when he perhaps shouldn’t, and she had loved him for it. She doubted she could ever come to love this cloud of dourness. She felt herself frowning and turned her face slightly away.

But he leaned closer to her, so as to be heard over the increasing din. “I think grief always looks to find someone to blame. But when the guilty is beyond our grasp, the grief turns itself to those closest to us. Grief can make us angry, my lady, and that is neither right nor wrong-it simply is. The best we can do is not let it make us bitter, for I fear there is little recovery from that.”

“And you, your grace?” Cersei turned back to him now, looking deep into those stormy grey eyes. “Has grief made you angry, or bitter?”

“Angry,” he replied, as solemn as ever. “So angry that I was afraid it would swallow me whole. I worry that it still might. When I received word of my sister-I had hope, for a while. I thought perhaps the gods were satisfied with my father and brother, and saw fit to return Lya to us that remained. But she died minutes after I found her, died in my arms, and then there was naught left but anger. I cursed the Targaryens, the Kingsguard, and even my own dead brother. If Brandon had only stopped to think, to listen to reason and wait for word from my father-if only he had done so many things. But it was like cursing the sky for being blue; the wolfblood ran too hot in Brandon for any of those things to have happened. Aerys and Rhaegar were both dead before I had chance to even lay eyes on them. Who is left to hold to account?”

“Does your brother’s natural son bring you some peace?”

It was perhaps not the best time to mention the bastard, or her knowledge of him. But Cersei was pleased by how neutral she was able to keep her voice. She was most decidedly not happy about the bastard’s existence, and Genna’s attempt to use Jaime’s memory had not led Cersei to where her aunt had hoped. _If Jaime had a bastard on any girl, I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from doing something terrible. Maybe not to the child, but I would not have spared the whore. Jaime had been mine and only mine ever since we came into this world. I’m not inclined to share him with anyone, even in his death._

Eddard’s face turned colder still. “Does the notion of my nephew upset you, my lady?”

“It does,” she admitted freely, “I have been raised on the idea that bastards are naturally deceitful and full of terrible lusts. But my uncle’s little bastard girl has so far proven to be nothing more than a sweet girl. I don’t think I am upset that the boy is a bastard, just the idea of who’s bastard he is. I have doubts and concerns, your grace. If you had been the older son, than perhaps I would have not cared. But he is your elder brother’s son, and we are both young and newly crowned. The game of thrones can be fatal if you do not play with one eye on all potential dangers.”

“Do you have a demand to make, in regards to the boy?”

And this was the point, the one Tyrion told her would happen. Eddard Stark looked carefully solemn and unaffected, but this was the first test of her new marriage. What she did in regards to the bastard would either bring the wolf to her, or drive him further away than she could follow. “No,” she turned her head until she could look her husband full in the eye. “Not yet. I have been reassured by many of my family members regarding the succession, but I cannot promise your grace of what I may feel later. I can appreciate how you must feel about him, this last piece of your brother. I merely ask that you appreciate my own feelings once they are clear, even if they are counter to your own. It is not an easy thing for a highborn woman to accept a bastard child.”

If this displeased him or placated him, she could not tell. Eddard merely nodded his head once and turned back to watch the dancers before them. He had not yet asked her to dance, though she is not that surprised. He did not seem like the sort to enjoy dancing. Of all the other kings at the high table, only Eddard and Jon Arryn remained sitting. Hoster Tully danced with his youngest daughter, Lysa. Although, from the frowns on their faces and the numerous times Hoster bent his head to say something in his daughter’s ear, it seemed they were more concerned with arguing than dancing. Even Stannis was out there, dancing in the most stilted and rigid manner with little Janei. Her cousin’s husband was Baratheon tall while Janei, despite her blonde hair and green eyes, took after her petite mother in most ways. Stannis scowled down at his own feet while Janei gave a tremulous smile as they skittered around the floor. 

Tywin was dancing with his new wife, the eldest Tully girl noticeably happier than her sister. Cersei watched as the girl laughed and smiled with Tywin, clenching her hands tightly into fists in her lap. She had met her new lady mother briefly yesterday and might have liked Catelyn Tully better if she had not just stepped into Cersei’s mother’s place. It made matters worse than her father did not seem displeased with the obvious good cheer of his wife. Had Cersei acted as Catelyn Tully did now, her father would have scolded her for making a scene. And while he did not join Catelyn in her obvious good cheer, the slight quirk of his lips and the almost warm look in his eyes was enough to ignite her temper. Her fingernails cut painfully into her palms as she clenched her fists tighter and tighter. Catelyn Tully was meant to be married into the desolate North but was given the glorious Westerlands instead. The girl knew it, seemed to want to flaunt it to the entire hall as she twirled about.

“She is a good woman, dutiful and kind,” and she nearly startled at the sound of his voice. Cersei looked to her new husband, watched as Eddard nodded towards the woman who would have been his wife if not for Tywin’s machinations. 

“Some might say it would not be seemly to compliment your former betrothed to your newly married wife,” Cersei forced herself to unclench her fists, twitched her nose unhappily at the red crescent marks there before turning her attention back to Eddard.

But her husband seemed more amused with her words than anything else. His lips curved upwards just slightly so. “My apologies, your grace.”

And she wanted to be annoyed by the laughing tone of his voice, but the added ‘your grace’ gave her an unexpected thrill. It was the first time anyone had called her that. Her lips twitched their way into a begrudging smile. “It is forgotten, your grace. Though you have been quite remiss in your husbandly duties thus far, I will forgive you this once.”

“Remiss?” and his smile grew just a bit more as he leaned in closer to her. “How so, your grace?”

“Tell me, your grace, did the Kings of Winter not dance?”

His smile dimmed just a bit, though from obvious nerves and not displeasure. “I-I am not the most graceful dancer, my lady. You may not appreciate the gesture once we start. I would not want to embarrass you on this night.”

She took his hand and smiled the gentle smile she had practiced relentlessly in the past two days to perfect. “It’s all right, your grace. I will lead you.”

~*~

Eddard did not lie; he was not entirely graceful on the dance floor.

However, he was also not the embarrassment he feared he would be. While a little rough in his movements, her husband danced passably well for two dances before she passed into her Uncle Tygett’s arms. Her mood improved as she went from partner to partner; it almost began to feel like her wedding feast was indeed a celebration. She danced a few times with Uncle Gerion, who was a better dancer than Eddard, but completely unpredictable. He would spin her suddenly and without warning whenever the mood struck, and by the third time she laughed instead of scolding. She danced with the other kings, her father, Hoster Tully, and even Jon Arryn once he decided to join the revelries. Stannis had fled the dance floor after a few turns with Janei, but she did not feel particularly remorseful at his absence. 

Eddard became entrapped once he led her to the floor, for after her he found himself with partner after partner as well. Little Janei, her mother, Aunt Gemma, and even the Tully sisters (she scowled only once when she noticed). He left the dancing soon after his last dance with Lysa Tully, disappearing into the throngs of his bannermen drinking by the hearths. Cersei danced on while men tried to entice her husband with drinks. She danced with many of her father’s bannermen, men she had known for most of her life. She danced with lords from Riverlands and Stormlands, even some from the Vale. Only two of her husband’s bannermen approached her for a dance, one named Glover and the other whose name she forgot as soon as she heard it. Lord Glover smiled wide and gave her many compliments, showing the Northern charm that she hadn’t been entirely sure existed. The other lord barely spoke, fumbled his way through the dance, but thanked “the Queen in the North” profusely for the dance.

The Queen in the North-it was becoming easier and sweeter to hear as the feast went on.

Inevitably, the calls for the bedding came and Cersei found herself encircled by a wall of men. Her uncles managed to push their way to the front and keep most of the grasping hands at bay. Her shoes were taken and the sleeves of her dress torn rather suddenly. Once the pulling on her skirts began, Cersei could not stop from scowling. Uncle Tygett hoisted her up in his arms before the entire dress could be ripped away and Gerion and Kevan cleared a path to the bedchamber. “Peace, little niece,” Tygett whispered as he raced past the drunken lords and their lewd laughter. “Show your father that dignity he thinks you incapable of holding.”

Cersei bit her tongue and forced herself to stop scowling. She did not manage a smile, but rather a pursing of the lips that suggested amusement rather than anger. Her uncles were not able to keep all the men at bay and she lost the remains of her dress before Tygett set her on her feet inside the bedchamber. The lords hooted and hollered the most ribald and bawdy jokes they could think of as she shivered in her thin shift. Her uncles rallied some of her father’s bannermen from the boisterous group and together the men of the Westerlands pushed the leering mass of men out of the room and shut the door. The shouts and bellows continued on without her and her scowl returned here in the relative privacy of the bedchamber. The men had descended into singing and Cersei could discern the first few lines of “The Queen Took Off Her Sandal, The King Took Off His Crown” before she resolutely turned her back on it.

They had brought her all the way to the Widow’s Tower, and these must be Eddard’s rooms. They were not different from the ones in the Kingspyre’s Tower, bare but for the necessities. A bed covered in furs, a wardrobe and a vanity, a small table with three chairs-it might as well been the room she had occupied upon her arrival to Harrenhal. The one difference was it was larger, in almost all ways. The bed was larger, the fireplace was larger, and the rug before the fire was larger. There was wine waiting on the small table, two goblets resting next to a pitcher. She ignored it for the moment, the warmth from the wine earlier lingered, warning her that she was nearing her limit.

She stepped to the vanity instead and sat at the little chair before it. The cloth roses from her hair were in a sorry state. The men had not much to grab at when Tygett had been racing her to the bedchamber, and most of their grasping fingers made their way to her head, still within reach resting as it was on her uncle’s shoulder. It annoyed her that her dress was gone and her roses were askew. She had been a vision this evening, and now she had little enough keepsakes to remember that by. She pulled the remaining roses and pins from her hair and scattered them atop the table.

Cersei was still shaking out her long blond tresses when she heard the giggling and squealing of her husband’s escort. She did not bother to look up when the door opened, but did look when Eddard was all but shoved into the room. The women had been crueler to her husband and stripped him bare. Eddard looked a bit dazed, clutching a lone boot to his chest as the women gleefully blew him farewell kisses. Cersei scowled over his shoulder at the women and caught sight of Gerion just behind them. The door was pulled shut quickly after that, which seemed to bring Eddard back to his senses. He moved forward with surprising speed and locked the door before letting his boot drop to the floor.

Cersei rose from her chair and stood behind her husband, a slight smile curving her lips as she looked him over. Even from behind she could see that Eddard was mostly muscle, a body forged in the fires of war. The scars that were sprinkled across his skin were testament to that fact. Most looked faint, though when he turned to her there was one that was larger and redder than the rest. She moved closer to see it, a straight slash across his left side. She had a hand on it before he could speak, her fingers skimming lightly across the wound from start to finish.

“Ser Arthur Dayne,” he said, his voice strained and breathless all at once. She smirked at the sound of it, flickering her eyes upwards to his face. He was blushing; gods, this man who had faced down one of the greatest knights in history was blushing because his bride was touching his naked flesh. He had a rather hard time meeting her gaze and when she dropped her eyes again, she could plainly see how much he enjoyed her touch.

Cersei bit her lip as she looked at her husband’s hardening cock. She liked it, not just for itself (and she liked it for that a bit more than she was willing to admit to herself) but for what it told her of her power over this man. She was yet in her shift and had not yet even kissed her husband, but Eddard obviously wanted her. Her many septas had explained her duties for this night many times in the years since she flowered, but Cersei did not care for their advice. The thought that she should simply lay down in the bed and let him do as he wanted had never been entertained. Desire was important to her marriage, Genna had told her, but not so important that she should let him control the bed sport. 

_Let him desire you, my dove. But remember, desire that is followed by possession will not work in your favour. Let him enjoy you, and you make him see you take your enjoyment. If you are to be his equal in all things, you must start first in the bedchamber. Make sure he knows that, but better still, make sure he likes it._

“Will you not kiss me, your grace?” she tilted her head upwards with her question, catching his eyes with her own. They were no longer ice grey, but the swirling grey clouds of an impending storm. His eyes fell to her lips at her question and she could plainly see the want on his face. She raised a hand and touched his cheek lightly. “I would rather like to be kissed now, Eddard.”

If the slight command in her voice offended him, he gave no indication. Eddard dipped his head and tentatively pressed his lips against hers. They were warm and tasted of the wine from the feast. She slid her hand from his cheek to the back of his neck and urged him forward just a bit. He heeded her wordless request and stepped up to her fully. It was only the thin silk of the shift that kept her skin from his and the press of his hard chest against her had her nipples hardening with almost embarrassing speed. She moaned slightly against his lips and raised her other hand to join the first at his neck. 

The weight of his hand on her hip was welcome, the first time since entering the room that he had put a hand upon her. She brushed her tongue across his closed lips and his light touch went immediately to a sharp grip, bunching the fabric of her shift up her legs. Obligingly, he deepened the kiss and his other hand came up to cradle the back of her head. His tongue met hers again and again, becoming bolder each time. When they broke apart, both took heaving breaths but took no steps to move away from one another.

“I would very much like to bed you right now, my lady,” Eddard spoke in a strangled voice that left her feeling very pleased with herself. “But, I would not want you to feel-“

She shook her head and cut off what would have no doubt been some honorable but dull gesture with a kiss that was much deeper and forceful than before. She pulled back from it suddenly and made sure to capture his gaze with her own. “Eddard, I would very much like to be bedded by you, right now.”

And before he could say anything else, she reached up and undid the ties on her shift. She took his hands and guided them into assisting her out of the material. When she stood bare before him, she swore her husband’s face went almost as scarlet as her father’s banner.

“You are the most beautiful woman in the world, I am sure of it.”

She smiled, pleased with the awed expression on his face. He slid his hands up her bare arms, suddenly bolder now that she had made her preference known. Cersei knew there would be no more honorable posturing this night, and she shivered slightly in want. It had been a long time since she had lain with a man. And while Eddard could never hope to be as handsome as her golden Jaime, the hard muscles of his body and the feeling of his thumb brushing the underside of her right breast made her feel desire.

_It would not be horrible to actually enjoy it,_ Genna had laughed once Tyrion was safely out of hearing. _It might take some training, but he is young and solid from what I’ve seen. It is not a terrible thing to have a solid man between your legs. You will see._

She would-she would see now. Eddard pushed her towards the bed and she let him, pulling another hard kiss from him before her knees hit the edge of the bed. She fell onto her bottom and to her utter surprise, Eddard dropped to his knees in front of her. His grey eyes were becoming steadily darker, no longer a threat of a storm, but one in truth. His hands settled on her knees and she stilled when he pushed them apart.

“Trust me, Cersei,” her name was a soft rumble against her left knee. He looked at her in earnest before smiling gently. Her breath caught in her throat; she had done this with Jaime, had to convince him to touch her there and train him on how to do it well. Jaime had been led while Eddard offered, and she did not know how she should react to that. She was utterly silent as she watched his dark head settled between her legs.

She gasped when she felt his tongue swipe at her, and then keened as he pressed further closer. He knew his trade down there, moving his hands to hold her in place and delving deeper and deeper with his tongue until she fell backwards onto the bed and canted her hips feverishly up to him. _Am I sure that bastard isn’t his? The wolf knows what he is doing, and knows how well he does it._

She twisted in the furs beneath her, crying out when she felt the push of his fingers into her. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she shouted as his fingers curled inside and he suckled just so on that little nub. She came so hard and so fast that her senses left her with blinding, ringing whiteness before slowly returning to her. She panted and shook with tiny tremors as Eddard trailed a path of kisses up her body as he joined her on the bed. His hand still skimmed over that little nub and she pushed it away with great impatience. 

Cersei opened her eyes and watched her husband’s face as she reached down and grasped his erect cock. “No more of that, Eddard,” she whispered to him, wanting to shiver at how much darker his eyes became when she moved her hand along the length of him. “I have been wedded your grace; I am still waiting to be bedded.”

“Gods, Cersei!” and she grinned smugly at how rigid he went when she guided his cock to her entrance. “Slower! I don’t want to hurt-“

“You won’t,” she cut off firmly as she snaked her legs around his waist and pulled him until she felt his cock push its way inside. There was a momentary flash of pain and discomfort-for all she had given her maidenhead to Jaime two years past, she had been with her brother only the once and never since. Her body had not quite remembered the stretch and the burn, especially since her kingly husband was undoubtedly thicker than Jaime had been. She gasped and tears came to her eyes immediately, and her husband rained apologies and kisses upon her neck as he pushed in further and further.

He stopped when she was full of him and held still while she took many steadying breaths. “Relax your body, Cersei,” he murmured into her ear, one hand cradling her head and one hand thumbing at her breasts. And she wanted to growl at him _that she was trying to relax_ and needed no instructions from him at this point, but he persisted. “The pain will soon fade.” And then he dropped his head to mouth at her neck.

The many little strokes, kisses, caresses, and suckles on his part did their work and pleasure flickered along her skin as the burn between her legs lessened. She gave a tiny sigh and shifted her hips ever so, and Eddard proved ever able to follow her lead. He pulled out and pushed back in slowly, almost lazily, while his lips remained latched upon her breast. His hands were rough and calloused, a warrior’s hands as Jaime’s had been. She could almost close her eyes and pretend it was her twin that pumped so deliciously slow and teasingly between her legs. But his shoulders were wider than Jaime’s had been, and he gripped her hips with less force than Jaime had, and if she continued in this vein she would dissolve into tears.

_I cannot, I cannot! I must claim this wolf husband, must bind him to me. Tears will do me no good. Forgive me, brother, but you cannot be here now._

Cersei kept her eyes open, stubbornly, and locked gazes with her husband. The storm still raged there, but his eyes were now so dark that they could be black. He moved his lips from her breast with an audible pop and actually growled before surging up to kiss her. She growled herself when she kissed him back, scratching at his back as she tried to pull him closer and closer still. His cock pounded into her with greater speed and force, so much that she imagined she could feel her bones rattle with it. Any sense of rhythm was lost as he neared his own release, his thrusting becoming erratic and almost desperate. One of his hands found its way down to where their bodies were joined and worked at that little nub with relentless fervour. She keened and twisted underneath him, chasing after her second climax while raking her nails up and down his arms.

She found her release just before his, not as powerful as the first but still enough to make her shriek his name to the ceiling. He was quieter, growling her name into her ear as he spilled his seed inside her. His head dropped to her shoulder and she hitched her legs further up his torso, rocking him into her once before she dropped them to the bed. Both their chests heaved from exertion, bodies slick with sweat, though he recovered first. He kissed her shoulder and neck before sliding himself out of her and settling on her side.

“Are you all right, my lady?” he asked, tone unsure and edging its way back to awkwardness. She smirked and turned her head towards him.

“I think you know your craft a bit too well to have real doubts, your grace.” And she laughed a little at how his cheeks redden even as a proud smile curved his lips. Her smile stretched on until the noises from outside their chamber came to her attention again. Her eyes fell on the door and she scowled fiercely. “I will perhaps feel better once we are able to do this without spectators at the door, your grace.”

“It is our most unseemly tradition,” Eddard agreed as he rose to pull the furs up to cover them. “I think they mean to have as much fun at our expense as they can, for the next bedding will be Stannis’s and he has little humour or appreciation for these traditions.”

“Poor little Janei,” Cersei sighed, her eyes drooping now that she was warm and sated. “My little cousin is too young for this-I fear she is still too young to be married. Father was unkind not to leave it at a betrothal.”

“She will be okay; her cousin is Queen in the North, and will no doubt protect her.”

She smirked and slid her eyes to his face. “Is that right?”

Eddard nodded and his eyes were serious as he returned her look. “It is, for the Queen in the North is as fierce a lion as I have ever seen.”

“Seen many lions, have you?”

“I fought beside them for near a year, your grace. I have an appreciation for the power of lions.”

~*~


	4. leaves of fire and burnt copper followed in her wake

**leaves of fire and burnt copper followed in her wake**

She did try, perhaps emboldened by her new husband’s words, but ultimately not even the Queen in the North could spare Janei a wedding and a bedding. 

Her father had made her a queen, but not so she could defy him. And Cersei was still too much the Lion’s daughter to push too hard. She had tried, just the once on the morning after her wedding whilst she took a mid-morning tea with her family, but her father would not hear of it. She dropped the issue with embarrassing swiftness and told herself that she had done her best. And she would have washed her hands of it but for the way Janei smiled at her with tear-filled eyes over the rim of her cup.

And now she felt guilty in the face of her cousin’s naked fear. Cersei blamed her husband, for while she meant her words about Janei to be simple, distanced laments, Eddard’s word had made her want to try. While she had not entertained any real notions of success, her attempt had sparked some hope in Janei that was obvious. Even more obvious was when that little hope was crushed and the little girl dropped her chin to hide behind her shiny blonde curls.

Cersei cursed her husband and little Janei as the guilt swirled in her belly. This had not been her problem, but now that she might feel different about that, she was without a means to do anything. What was the point of being a queen if people still did not listen to her?

It was then that Cersei locked eyes with her new lady mother, the new Queen in the Westerlands, Catelyn Lannister. She looked at Cersei with understanding and Janei with sympathy, and sometime before the end of tea, both queens came to have the same look of determination on their faces. It was no use battering against the unassailable wall that was Tywin Lannister; they needed to breach the walls of a less fortified keep.

_A lion’s might is not as fearsome against another lion, but can be properly appreciated in a fight with lesser prey. The eagle and the trout are too slippery to engage, but the stag won’t hesitate to meet head to head, even if he knows he will fall._

Cersei did not need Catelyn to accompany her, but allowed it on the chance she might be helpful. The girl had managed to work her way from two northern betrothals to the bed of the richest and most feared king in the new Westeros-so perhaps she would find a way to be useful. They both departed from the tea to don their armour; Catelyn to the rooms she shared with Tywin and Cersei to the new chambers she shared with Eddard. Both would have their own set of rooms once they arrived at their new homes, but Harrenhal was ever pressed for space as it seemed to be more and more crowded with each passing day. 

Her husband was not in the bedchamber when she entered, and she had not seen him since they broke their fast at the little table in the corner of the room. She knew that he had work to do, preparing his men to break camp and ready themselves for the march north. But a large part of her wondered if he had gone to see to his brother’s bastard, wherever it was that Eddard had hidden him. Cersei would need to remind Tyrion to redouble his efforts to find where exactly Eddard was keeping the child. It was imperative that she see the babe before they left Harrenhal.

But that was a problem for another day. She had brought two maids with her from Casterly Rock, and was grateful for them now more than ever. For all their less than satisfactory work, of which she tended to find much of, they at least were trained in being a lady’s maid. It would not take her much longer to train them to be proper queen’s maids to serve her in Winterfell, and it was just as well. Thinking back to the wild-haired, spear wielding Mormont woman Tyrion had been raving about just two days past, Cersei highly doubted she would find proper maids anywhere in the North.

The girls were, for once, not uselessly kicking their heels about, but had been working both at preparing her things for her cousins wedding and starting her packing for the trip North. And while she had not necessarily unpacked the things she had brought from Casterly Rock, there were new gowns and wedding gifts to stow away for the journey. A few had been from Eddard, given to her this morning with the warning that he suspected most of her gowns would do her no good in Winterfell. 

“The North is not a land of silks,” he had offered when presenting the heavier and dark gowns to her. Some attempt had been made at decoration, with silver and gold embroidery here and there. But the gowns were still plainer than she was used to, and Eddard had seemed apologetic at this. “We can have more made later, ones to your liking. But you will likely need these once we pass through the Neck.”

There had been two new cloaks as well, and all items had been heavily lined with fur. She supposed it was sweet for him to think of her comfort. Yet, the clothes reminded her sharply of what was she leaving and where she was going. The golden valleys of the Westerlands to be traded for the desolate, frozen North. Cersei had barely managed a smile and a murmur of gratitude and departed immediately after her husband for the Kingspyre tower. 

The reminder of such things put her in a darker mood than before. She snapped at the maids to bring her something befitting a queen and reprimanded them harshly while they worked. Both idiot girls were red-faced and one near tears when she was ready in her white and gold gown. Genna’s voice needled at her from the back of her mind, all that nonsense of needing love and fear in equal measure. She huffed and told the maids their work was adequate before sending one to the merchants camping outside with a few coins pressed into her hands.

“We leave in a matter of days, and you both are to serve me in the North-purchase warm cloaks for the travel and we will see to your clothes once we arrive in Winterfell. However, if your work is ever not done to my satisfaction, I will abandon you on the Kingsroad wherever we may be.”

Cersei left them nodding and stammering thanks. Catelyn awaited her outside the Widow’s tower, wearing a golden and crimson gown that Tywin had no doubt gifted her recently. The girl wore few jewels, probably only from what her father had given her in preparation for her previous two proposed weddings. Cersei herself had been given instructions to take her jewels and a selection of her mother’s before leaving the Rock. She understood that those pieces of her mother’s that she had left behind would now be gifted to Catelyn and she cursed her father silently for not being entirely truthful when he sent for her. She knew why he told her little, in consideration of her ‘sweet’ temperament, but she felt cheated. Whether she wanted it or not, Catelyn had taken Cersei’s mother’s place and Cersei still could not accept that graciously.

“Your grace,” Cersei greeted with a stilted curtesy. Catelyn said nothing of the dismal greeting, dipping into a quick curtesy of her own.

“Your grace, I believe the Tower of Dread is this way.”

Of course Stannis would be in the Tower of Dread. It was aptly named for its current resident. They walked in near silence, Cersei forcing herself to engage in a few of the mindless pleasantries her septas had insisted she learn. They were both trailed by a single guard; Catelyn had one of her father’s redcloaks following while Cersei had a man in Stark colours behind her. The man had been waiting for her when she first left the Widow’s tower that morning. He had bowed and introduced himself as Ronnel and proceeded to shadow her. Ronnel had long hair and a wild beard that were both pitch black. His eyes were as black as his hair, but his skin was so pale it was nearly white. He wore no armour for protection like the redcloak, only his boiled leathers with no helm nor a cloak. He had a sword on his hip, an axe in his belt, and was barely presentable as a guard for a queen. But he was also suitably terrifying and with him at her shoulder, people clamoured to get out of her way in a manner that made her want to laugh.

Stannis received two queens in his midst with absolutely no fanfare. The Storm King was attended by three people; his grandfather Lord Estermont, a maester, and a shabby looking man with missing fingers and a perpetually baffled expression on his face. It was Lord Estermont who sent for food and wine, who ordered the table in the small solar cleared of papers and chairs brought in for the guests. Stannis watched all without a word and a dark look. He looked absolutely put out by their appearance in his temporary quarters and just three minutes in his company dispelled any lingering doubts about why her father had not made this match.

The food and wine arrived, and the others departed at her request. The shabby man and maester left with no fuss, obviously two people used to receiving and quickly following orders. Lord Estermont dallied and questioned and finally left after a curt dismissal from Stannis.

“We will not take much of your time, your grace,” Catelyn had kept a pleasant smile on her face in light of Stannis’s curtness, and her voice was steady but still a bit honeyed in tone. “Queen Cersei and I have come to you with a delicate matter regarding your wedding, one you may not have considered in your preparations.”

“The sept has been handled by your husband and the feast by my own grandfather,” Stannis spoke gruffly. “It will be as extravagant and frivolous as the others, have no fear.”

“We have come about the bedding,” and Catelyn winced at her flat tone and abrupt manner, but Cersei was a Queen and would not be spoken to like this without responding in kind.

Stannis waved his hands dismissively. “There will be no bedding ceremony. We will depart the hall at an appropriate time. I will not have my wedding feast end in insult.”

“My concern is more for how you will end in Janei,” and she spoke now with the same honeyed tones as Catelyn. Stannis went red in the face and she smiled widely at the sight.

“Janei is a girl, no matter what the men in her life have said about her,” Catelyn dropped her smile and took on a concerned expression. “And she is rightly frightened of what is to come, your grace. She is but three and ten.”

“Father and Uncle Kevan will not listen to reason, not wanting to insult you by making yours the only wedding that will not happen at Harrenhal. And it should happen; it is a new world and weddings are always the best way to celebrate the birth of something new. And you will be within your rights to demand that Janei do her duty to you, whatever her feelings on the matter,” now Cersei paused and glared down the king before her. “You should not press for those rights.”

The Storm King looked appropriately thunderous, blue eyes flashing as he very audibly grinded his teeth together. “It is not your place to tell me what I should or should not do, woman.”

“Queen,” Catelyn corrected him, in a manner much kinder than Cersei would have done. “And Janei’s own cousin-I daresay, the closest your bride has to a sister.”

“And for that supposedly familial love, I should dishonour myself and be the only king to leave Harrenhal not wedded and bedded?”

Cersei scoffed, perhaps a touch too loudly. “You are not like the other kings. My father, King Jon, and King Hoster have ruled their lands for years. Their bannermen love them, honour them, and obey them. For them to now be kings is not so different for those lords owing fealty to them. And what of you, your grace? Can you say the same?”

Stannis looked at her with great disdain, and for the first time, Cersei silently thanked her father for his decision. Catelyn stepped in to the silence, poised and gracious as always. “You are a young king, and Janei will be a young queen. There is a lot on her shoulders as well and you will need her to be strong, a helping hand in your rule. It would be easier, would it not, if you were to show her that you will support her and care for her?”

“By not bedding her,” Stannis grumbled.

“By listening to her,” Cersei folded her hands primly in her lap as she leaned back in her chair. “Neither of us can tell you what Janei will want at the moment. But if you took the time to ask, to see how she felt-well, your marriage wouldn’t be off to a bad start, would it? And of course, we cannot tell you to keep away from her all your wedded life. Give her some time, to adjust to her new life, to you, and you might be happier for it.”

Catelyn was quick to pick up for her. “Queens though we may be, we are still just women. We cannot force you one way or another. But we have not come to you today just as queens, with a list of demands. She is young, your grace, painfully so. And though she tries to hide it, she is overwhelmed and anxious about how her life is about to change. The decision is yours, we just ask that you think on what we have said.”

He was still glaring when he bowed in response to their curtsies. Catelyn’s smile was kinder than hers, though she doubted that Stannis approved of either of them just now. They left as they arrived, walked out of the Tower of Dread side by side, guards trailing silently behind them. Catelyn fell back into her courtesies, murmuring soft asides about the weather and the upcoming wedding and the like. Cersei played along as much as her patience would allow her, not fully engaging in conversation but not wanting to seem less queenly than her companion. 

Catelyn called after her, when Cersei had nodded and moved away to enter the Widow’s Tower. Cersei turned back wordlessly, determined to look unaffected and not let her irritation show. “Your grace?”

Catelyn huffed a little at the title, her courtly smile giving way to a much more sardonic expression. “A week ago, I was to be the Lady of Winterfell. Today I am the Queen of the Westerlands, and I have stepchildren. If you and I have our first babes within the next few years, I will have made you a sister once more and you will have made me a grandmother. It is all so strange.”

“A good thing then that I decided against addressing you as my lady mother,” Cersei managed a small smile that was no doubt as humourless as she felt. “Though I am sorry if you feel I have usurped your place in the North-I had no hand in it, your grace.”

“We never do,” Catelyn bit her lip and looked thoughtfully in the direction of the Kingspyre Tower. “I am not angry, or covetous, your grace. It is not so much as the loss of the North I am feeling; I had spent so long thinking and planning for a life with Brandon. Any marriage after his death would no doubt have left me with similar feelings. But let us put all this aside; they did not care to ask us before betrothing us, and I daresay they won’t ever ask us how we feel of them now. But what we have just done, whether it works out or not, it felt good. It felt . . . useful. I have been a queen for nearly a week, and I don’t think I could appreciate it until just now. We could do real things-if we so wanted. Our husbands have an alliance, what stops us from something similar?”

The idea intrigued her, and confused her just the same. “I doubt we will have much say in the king’s rule-I know my father will not let you sit at the table and discuss war or treaties or governance.”

“Let him keep it,” Catelyn waved a hand dismissively. “I care not for men’s work; I am talking of women’s work. I was trained in how to run a household, how to run a keep and manage a staff. A kingdom is only a larger keep than the one I am used to-but there are things there that are in my realm of control. I intend to rule with my husband, whatever his notions on my role might be. And there are things, like with Janei, that I think we can come together for. Please, think on it.”

And she did think on it, hours and hours after their conversation. It gave her a slight thrill to contemplate it, to imagine a world where an alliance of queens could rule alongside the kings. She knew that there would be limits to her power, but there were no finite boundaries just yet. Her husband was not her father; a second son not raised to rule-he would need her. It was a heady feeling.

It put her in a good enough mood to invite Tyrion to sup with her and her husband, and to even smile somewhat genuinely at her little brother here and there. She was surprised by his appearance, knowing that Tywin even had his sister hard at work for Janei’s wedding, the final showing of Lannister wealth and power at what smallfolk were already calling the Great Remaking. Tyrion had come to be Genna’s favourite little henchman, tasking him with all the subtle tricks she didn’t trust her brothers to do well. Though Cersei supposed the trick with Tyrion and the northmen could only work once if it were to be kept believable. And besides, Janei actually had that sweet temperament the family was always going on about. It made her meek in Cersei’s opinion, but perhaps meek was just the trait that could survive Stannis’s rigidness. 

Her husband was pleased to see her brother at the table. _He has a little brother waiting in Winterfell, the last of his family. Is that who he sees in Tyrion’s place?_ It seemed odd to her that anyone would appreciate her brother’s company for its own sake; everyone either had a need of him or not, and that usually determined how much time they spent with him. Perhaps it was only Jaime and their uncle Gerion who actually liked the boy for himself. Jaime used to beg her to spend time with their brother, thinking earlier on that perhaps she could learn to love him. She had refused, every time, and was sometimes extra cruel in spite. It was the only thing in which she had ever disappointed Jaime, and she had never cared before he was gone. _I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying._

Tyrion could be charming, and there was a fierce intelligence burning in his eyes. She had always dismissed it before, dismissed him for being less, but she could see it clearly now. Tyrion would never be in great in any way except in his wits. Tywin would never truly appreciate it; his hatred ran too deep. And while she didn’t think her father would turn kinslayer, there was no doubt in her mind that her father would try to be rid of Tyrion soon. _The first king of the Westerlands in three hundred years will not allow the memory of a dwarf son to taint his reign._

What to do about it? Should she bother to do anything about it? _I’m trying, my love, but Father is Father._

“Have you ever been to the Wall, your grace?” Tyrion was still enough of a child that she could see the excitement plain on his face. Her brother had all his focus on her husband, and as most talks of the north tended to do, it drew a smile from Eddard. He did that more often than she had originally thought. Not that he didn’t spend most of the day alternating between dour and blank, but he did smile here and there. He did not seem to know how to smile insincerely, or just for the sake of appearances. His courtesies were still stilted and his northern accent was thick on his tongue.

_Perhaps it is best that the north is so far away-he doesn’t seem capable of courtly pretences. I shall have to teach him._

“My lord father took me and my elder brother, once,” Eddard preferred ale to wine with his dinner, and sipped at it slowly throughout a meal. She kept to her Arbor wine and idly debated having her maids procure some wine to make the trip north, in the chance there would be only ale available to her once they reached Winterfell. “My father went often, and said it was the duty of the Warden of the North to look to the Wall from time to time. He took Brandon because he said Brandon had to learn his duty as the heir to Winterfell. And Brandon took me because he said he didn’t want to be bored travelling with father and the guards. I imagine he would have preferred to have taken Lyanna with him; my sister was far livelier than I and they got on better. But you don’t take a lady to the Wall unless you have to, so he had to make do with me.”

Tyrion’s glee was easy to see. “What was it like?”

“Cold,” Eddard replied after a long moment of contemplation. “And vast-you see it long before you arrive at Castle Black. Once you catch sight of it, it seems like it goes on forever. The ice shines as sunlight hits it, but it is so cold to the touch that it’s painful. You can go to the top and it feels as though you can see right to the Lands of Always Winter, though Old Nan would tell you not to look too hard lest the Others take notice and look back.”

Tyrion perked up at the mention of the Others, but Cersei firmly put an end to his questions before they started. “I’ll not have you dreaming such nightmares that Aunt Genna would refuse to send you again,” she warned her brother and glared at him when he opened his mouth to protest. Cersei had a lifetime of such silly Northern wives’ tales to look forward to, she would not be subjected to them until she was actually in the North. She turned the conversation forcibly to the wedding on the morrow and told demure little lies about how excited little Janei was and how handsome a couple she would make with the storm king.

“Ronnel tells me that you and Queen Catelyn visited his grace this morning,” Eddard said at the mention of Stannis. “He also mentioned the King looked very unhappy when you took your leave of him.”

“Ah, but Ronnel failed to mention how unhappy Stannis had been to make our acquaintance from the start,” Cersei smirked into her wine. “I would venture to say that perhaps that is just our new Storm King’s standard expression.”

Tyrion laughed into his cup of iced honey milk, but her husband looked not amused. “He is having a difficult time. His parents have been dead for years, now Robert is lost to him. I won’t say there was much love lost between the brothers, for they were hardly together without soon being nearly at blows-but he lost his brother, the head of his family, and in his liege lord in one death. To his vassals he must now be king, to Renly a brother and father both, and to your cousin a good husband. It is much to ask of a man not even twenty name days.”

Cersei arched an eyebrow. “They ask the same of you, your grace. And you are not much older, and yet of infinite more charm.”

His lips twitched, as if wanting to smile, and she would have that as a victory. “Yes, I am not much older, and our situations exactly the same. They will say we were lucky to be kings, no better than Aegon the Unlikely, and that supposed luck might be all they ever say of us. The second sons with the unbelievable luck.”

“Perhaps it will be the people of the north and the stormlands who turn out to be lucky, your grace,” Tyrion rose to his feet on his chair and raised his child’s cup to her husband. “To the Spring of the Second Sons-may it blossom into a long summer of peace and bounty.”

_No wonder the northmen were charmed,_ Cersei smiled at her brother and raised her cup along with his. She looked to her husband, no longer so serious, but not obviously happy as well. “It is good it is spring, your grace, for that is the best time to plant anew. Even second sons may yet blossom in the spring.”

He nodded. “They might, but spring is a season, as is summer. All seasons have their end, and whenever the summer starts one must always remember: winter is coming.”

She swallowed an exasperated sigh and managed a nod in reply. “Wise words, your grace,” Tyrion sat down and smiled innocently at Eddard. “And you are right, for the north, winter must always be on the mind. But I think that it is good that when you return to the north, you take with you the Light of the West. Perhaps one day, when winter has come, my golden sister can be as a living reminder that while winter has its day, now it is summer that is coming.”

And her husband laughed at this, a real laugh, before a warmer smile settled itself on his face. He looked to her and then looked down, at once seeming again the bashful wolf of Harrenhal. “You may have the right of it, Lord Tyrion.” Then he smiled at her, a hint of awe returning to his eyes. “I am near certain of it.”

Cersei liked that look in his eyes. He did one better later that night, looking up at her with an air of reverence before she guided his head between her legs and lost herself to that damnably talented tongue. She near flew off the bed, arching into his mouth as her release broke over her; only the press of his right hand down on her abdomen kept her there. She was near senseless with pleasure when he mounted her again that night, the burn and stretch of him inside covered by the dizzying haze of her second tumble over the precipice. 

He was slow and deliberate, easing in and out at languid pace. She had to lock her ankles behind his back and use her legs to push him into her with greater speed and force. “Harder,” she demanded as he latched onto her left breast, suckling at her teat with the same leisurely pace at which he pushed his cock into her. She had to growl it with more force the next time, which made him laugh before complying. Her husband went from a slow and teasing thrust to one that was almost violent in its speed. Eddard pulled her to the edge of the bed, threw her legs over his shoulders, and pounded into her so hard that her whole body shuddered at the impact.

Her third release came upon her suddenly, almost shamefully quick after he began his faster pace. But Eddard was not done, and so fucked her right through it and drove her right over the cliff for the fourth time after sliding a hand down to where they were joined and pinching at her pearl there. He spilled his seed in her before she fell apart once again, his cock still twitching inside her when she tightened around him for the last time that night. He groaned almost lewdly at the sensation and Cersei laughed at finding she enjoyed this look on him as well.

_If nothing else, the wolf king can fuck me through the northern winter to keep me warm._ It was a surprisingly pleasant thought. And though the spectre of Jaime lingered ever near, the thought remained decidedly so.

~*~*~

(Stannis had never thought the moment would come that he would miss his brother, but it did the moment he had been left alone with two young queens.

_Robert would have been a dreadful king, but he would not have wasted time mulling over what to do with the girl._ And he was under no illusion that Robert would have listened to the queens’ counsel; he knew that his brother would have bedded the young girl with nary a concern. Robert was ruled too often by his cock, though Stannis felt a sliver of guilt thinking of him thus. Robert had never been close to him; he had always loved his Stark foster brother more than his trueborn brothers. But he had been family, and now he was as lost to him as were Mother and Father.

It had not been easy raising arms for his brother-casting off his loyalty to the Crown had caused Stannis concern. He was not Robert, ruled by lust and whims. Stannis knew the importance of rules and laws and vows. He also suspected he knew more of honour than his brother had, but again felt a little guilt of thinking on it. But Stannis had chosen allegiance to family over allegiance to the Crown, and it was supposed to end with Robert on the throne, not with eight new kings and a child bride for himself.

And Stannis knew that was what all the others had expected as well. Now all those Storm Lords who had rode for war for his brother were left with him, and not all of them were pleased. It chafed at him, that they could be so obvious in their desires. It was an insult to him; they owed loyalty to the head of the Baratheon family, not which member of that family they preferred. He was owed their allegiance, and some did not give it freely.

That was why he had allowed his grandfather to arrange this marriage. The Westerlands were rich and strong, but also the promise of Tywin Lannister at his back probably kept Stannis’s vassals in line more than any real notion of fealty. Stannis knew, better than most, that he needed this marriage. He needed this alliance to keep a hold on his lands and bannermen. He also knew that Tywin and the other kings knew of this weakness. He almost rejected the marriage offer as an insult, that Tywin and Hoster Tully would give their grown daughters to the other kings, but left only a child for him. But Lord Estermont had advised him to accept it, only later telling him the truth of how constrained they all were.

“The marriages are to bind our five kingdoms together, so that we may show a stronger hand to the dragon lovers. But there were only so many eligible highborn ladies to be wed. Tywin meant to offer you his daughter, but privately spoke to me of her rather stubborn nature. We feared it would be a contentious match, and that would have weakened the alliance. And I had heard some rumours that Lysa Tully might have disgraced herself before her marriage, and I would not have such a bride for you. Jon Arryn had no female relative of a marriageable age, and the only other Tully-Baratheon union would have left either the Westerlands or the Vale out of the arrangement. Lord Tywin’s niece is young, but lovely and sweet tempered, and perhaps you two will suit each other better than the alternatives.”

“She is also a woman flowered,” Maester Cressen had assured him. “Younger ladies have been made into wives before. The six years between you both may seen long now, your grace, but it will not always be so.”

And these useless platitudes had been put before him once again, when the queens of the West and the North had departed. He had had his own doubts before, dancing with his betrothed at the Stark-Lannister wedding. She may have been a woman flowered, but she was small and delicate and looked more child than woman. Stannis knew of his duty, but the queens, however presumptuous he had found them to be, made him question it.

Was he more duty bound to consummate his marriage (and through it, the alliance), or was he more duty bound to his little Lannister queen and her feelings? Would it be insulting to refuse to bed her, or would it be barbarous to insist on it? Stannis could not decide whether his duty lay, and could find no decent counsel from his grandfather or his maester.

And so, he sent away both his grandfather and maester, and asked the Onion Knight.

“It is not my place to be telling you what to do, your grace,” Ser Davos was still visibly uncomfortable in his new station. He kept trying to right his clothes, even when they were already righted, and then ended up having to struggle with the clumsy stumps where his fingers used to be. “Your lord grandfather is much wiser-“

“I don’t care,” he willed himself not to grind his teeth together, to not let his obvious irritation show. “I asked you a question, ser knight. I would have an honest answer.”

Ser Davos, for all his lowborn accent and mannerisms, was honest and forthright in his own manner of honour. “If she were my girl, your grace, I would put my fist to your jaw or worse should you try to bed her.”

Stannis had thought as much. “Her father and kingly uncle would like me to bed her.”

“Why should you care what they would like?” Ser Davos said with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “You’re the king of your own kingdom, and she will be your queen. They cannot command you.”

“They would think me a lesser man, if I cannot even bed a girl of ten and three. The Storm Lords already make noise.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, your grace,” the Onion Knight bowed his head, but gave a sly smile as well. “There are ways around that. You have said you will not allow the bedding, and there is no law that says your wedding night should be free entertainment for your lords. There are other ways to bloody sheets in the privacy of your chambers.”

That there was.)

~*~*~

It was a day after Janei’s wedding that Tyrion finally proved himself useful in the matter of the Stark bastard. Her husband had hidden the child not inside Harrenhal, but among the tents beyond the walls. Specifically, the bastard was in the care of Lord Howland Reed, of Greywater Watch; the only man besides Eddard who had returned alive from the Tower of Joy.

Tyrion had told her what he could of the man, and Cersei was still surprised when she meets him. Tyrion had said he was a smaller man, but in truth, Lord Howland looked more child than man. She towered over him as he bowed to her before calmly requesting that she return to the Widow’s Tower inside the keep.

He said this all over the wailing coming from inside his tent. She looked pointedly over his shoulder and then gave him a stern look. “We both know why I am here, my lord. Now tell me, are you to stand in the way of your queen or will you step aside?”

“King Eddard will not be pleased that you came here without him,” was all he had to say.

“Then his grace should have told me plainly not to seek out his nephew,” Cersei folded her arms across her chest and glowered at the man before her. “I have not been barred from seeing the boy, and I will see him now. And it might be better for him if I do. Whoever has him now certainly does not seem capable of comforting him. Tell me, do you feel more or less dutiful while Lord Brandon’s natural son howls all day and night and you do naught to stop it?”

She stepped around him without giving him a chance to answer, and he allowed it. Cersei knew that he followed at her heel as she went into the tent, but ignored him in favour of the scene before her. There were three women in the tent, two of them obviously younger than the third. She supposed the elder woman was the wetnurse, as the younger two looked too young and too harried by the child’s screaming to be mothers with babes of their own. One of the younger girls was pacing around the tent with the bastard in her arms, jiggling him in a desperate bid to calm him while the other two sat upon a small cot and watched.

“Tell me, do you allow him to cry like this all hours of the day, or are you merely too incompetent to soothe him?”

Three set of weary eyes turn her way, before understanding comes to one and all. All three bobbed up and down in tiny curtsies and stammered some courtesies that she cared not to hear. “Is he fed?”

“Yes, your grace,” the wetnurse was the one to reply. “But he rarely settles. He will drink some and then cry more. Often he spits up what he drinks, and sleeps fitfully. I am worried that he cannot stomach the milk.”

“You have been a wetnurse before, yes?” Cersei watched the younger maid continue her pacing and jiggling while the bastard continued his wailing. “Have you not dealt with many children and their various maladies?”

The wetnurse flushed, cheeks a bright red. “I have tried all I know, your grace. It sometimes works, but not for long.”

Cersei waved off her excuses impatiently. “Have any of you sent for a maester?” She turned and glared at the cranogman behind her. “Lord Reed?”

“The maester suggested to try goat’s milk, in small doses,” the wetnurse answered. “The babe wants it less than the teat.”

The babe was near shrieking his displeasure and Cersei growled at the useless maid before snatching the babe from her arms. “Give him here, worthless girl,” she put the babe to her shoulder and rubbed at his back. He wailed still, though shrieked no longer. “Go to the Kingspyre Tower, girl. Send message to Lady Genna Frey that I have need of her here.”

The idiot girl blinked at her and looked uncertainly to the wetnurse. “You have been commanded by the Queen in the North, girl,” Cersei glared at the fool. “You should already be halfway there.”

Something in the girl thought of self-preservation, and she nearly ran from the tent. “The Lady Genna, your grace?” Lord Howland made no move to stop the girl, or take the babe from his queen.

Cersei made to seat herself on the wetnurse’s cot, scattering the idling women there with a pointed glare. “My aunt is a mother three times over, my lord,” Cersei sat herself down in a swirl of skirts, moved the bastard from her shoulder to perch him on her lap. She cradled his red, wet face in one hand and moved him just so he was slightly bent at the waist. The other hand came to tap against his back in quick repetition. “She has lived most of her married life at the Rock, and her youngest used to scream all day and night when he was born. Our maester gave her some potion to feed him and bade her to hold him so, to encourage belching. He said the more the babe belched, the happier he would be. And the potion would do the rest. Both practices brought little Tion relief from whatever ailed him. Perhaps it will work as well for this babe.”

“But I burp the babe always after feeding, your grace,” the wetnurse wrung her hands. “But still he is distressed.”

The babe chose that moment to belch, louder than one would expect from such a tiny creature. Cersei said nothing to the wetnurse, only arched a brow at her as she continued to tap upon the child’s back. The babe had not quite settled, but now whimpered unhappily instead of wailing, and Cersei continued still. Lord Howland watched her closely, his face carefully devoid of expression.

“You are most compassionate, your grace, to give so much attention to a bastard boy,” Lord Howland’s tone held none of the appreciation his words implied. He was cautious, and suspicious still, but Cersei cared not. She was not here for him, nor even the bastard. She had come because she knew Eddard would hear that she had come, and as Tyrion had said, the bastard must be hers. Now, tomorrow, and for all the years to come-the bastard must love her, and Eddard must see him love her.

Upon her knee, the little babe belched once more.

~*~*~


End file.
